


Carousel

by Rachel_Lu



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Beach House, Beaches, Carnival, Detectives, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Getting Together, Love Confessions, Mystery, Post-Episode AU: s04e13 Journey's End, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-10-19 01:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 50,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10629714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachel_Lu/pseuds/Rachel_Lu
Summary: The Doctor and Rose go on their first adventure after reuniting to a beach town that has a problem with a disappearing carnival, namely, the strange carousel that strikes Rose as very odd...Journey's End alternate ending





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NOW, everybody knows I LOVE Tentoo, but this is just a little bit different, as it is an alternate ending. I hope you enjoy this! Please let me know what you think :)
> 
> I ALSO want you guys to know that the love you guys gave me on my last fic made me so happy and I hope you guys like this one just as much! Thanks for sticking with me and reading my stuff <3

“Ah-ha!  I told you!”  
Rose looked up from the show she was watching and stared at the Doctor. Lifting the remote, she paused the show. “What is it, Doctor?”

He beamed down at her, arms crossed over his chest.  “I told you that I could find something weird for us to take care of,” he said, beaming, very proud of himself.

She fiddled with the remote and grinned back at him.  “Okay.  You gonna explain yourself, then?”

The Doctor rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands in his pockets.  “Rose, how do you feel about disappearing things?”

Rose turned to him and scowled.  She had literally _just_ got back from being in a parallel world, fighting to get to him, and he was going to ask her _that?_ He seemed to realize his mistake and awkwardly rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand.

“Not… Not me- can I sit with you?”

She grinned, forgiving him instantly. Sometimes the Doctor said things that he didn’t mean all the way.  She leaned over and patted the couch cushion next to her.  He bounded over to her and sat down next to her, leaning back on the couch cushions.

“So, what is it?” Rose asked, “You said that our first adventure was going to be to find something weird.  Which, by the way, was not a hard request, so I’m not quite sure why you’re so pleased with yourself.”

He didn't seem to be discouraged by her remarks.  She had a feeling he was just in the beginning stages of being thrilled to have her back, though he hadn’t been touching her nearly as much as he had before she was lost, and she couldn’t say it wasn’t bothering her.

“You’re right,” he said. “We could just go down to London, and visit with your family.”

Rose wrinkled her nose.  They’d just left her family, and Rose wasn’t really fond of the manor that Pete had purchased for her mother.  Though they were back in the original universe, it seemed that their money from the parallel one worked just fine.

She stared at him when he didn’t continue. “Um, so are you planning on telling me about the thing you found?”

“I think I should just show you.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why would I do that when you could just tell me?  What if I don’t like it?”

He frowned at her. “Would you really?  Not like an adventure I take you on, I mean. I want you to be happy.  I won’t take you if-”

“Oh, my God.  Doctor, I was kidding.  Just tell me the planet.”

He frowned.  “I actually didn’t get that far when I was investigating it on the console.” He looked very embarrassed, his cheeks coloring a bit.  “To be honest, I was just really excited to tell you about it.”

Well, if that didn’t make her heart melt, she was sure nothing would.  She wished he would just hold her hand already.

Since he wasn’t going to, she reached out and grabbed his hand in both of hers, squeezing it and smiling.  “Okay, then, let’s go.”

“Really?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, let’s go.”

He hopped onto his feet and pulled her up by her hands.  She giggled as she almost crashed into his chest.  He bounced back from her and bounded right out of the media room.  She had to laugh as she chased after him.

They were still hovering in the vortex, so he waited for her to reach the console room before starting the landing sequence.  

“You know the drill!” He shouted, “Grab onto something!”

Oh, did she know the drill.  This was to be their first adventure since she’d come back, and she was really expecting something fantastic.  Maybe it was wrong of her to keep her expectations of the Doctor so high, but after being so long without him, she did expect some level of flashy behavior.  

Well, of course, what she’d expected from him was for him to snog her senseless the moment she came back, to profess an undying love.  But of course, she knew that he wouldn’t.  That had never been how the Doctor operated.  He would never be like that with her, but being with him at all was worth it.  

Her thoughts were shaken as they crashed, and she was thrown to the ground, laughing joyously.  She was just so _happy_ to be home.  She could hear him laughing next to her, eyes shut with how hard he was laughing.  She turned over and got to her feet before reaching over to help him up. He grunted and took her hand, hopping to his feet.  

“Right then!  Shall we see what’s outside?”

“Why don’t you tell me what we’re looking for?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,” he said, “Besides, they’re expecting us.  Detective John Smith and Detective Rose Tyler are on the case!”

“You- what?” Rose blinked. “They’re expecting us?”

He shook his head, tsking,  “Rose, of course.  Psychic paper, remember.  We’re investigators of the paranormal to them.”

Rose gaped at him.  “Did you just make us the X-files?”

He wrinkled his nose at her. “Rose, if anything, that would make us Mulder and Scully, and no, we are not _the X-files._ Although…. Okay, kind of, but not _really,”_ He seemed to have confused himself, and she decided to take pity on him.

“Alright, Doctor.  So I’ll follow your lead, and we’ll head out.”

He beamed at her.  “Yes, that’s what I was hoping for.”  

There was a hesitancy that made her heart clench when he reached out his hand for hers. She slid her hand into his and smiled up at him.  “Are we dressed alright for this?” She asked, gesturing at her jacket, button-up shirt, and jeans ensemble.  

He nodded. “Oh, yes.  Very modern, this, just like the twenty first century.  You don’t have a thing to worry about with it.”

“You sure you didn’t miss the mark?” She teased.

He scowled forward, the thought seeming to overtake him. “No, I’m quite certain that I didn’t miss it. We’ll be quite alright, thank you.”  Without another word, he pulled her along out of the TARDIS and right into an alleyway.  Past that seemed to be a semi-bustling city.  

“Huh,” She said, “Looks like New Earth.”

“Well, it’s not,” he said.  “It’s Cleark IV, usually a vacation planet full of condos and beaches.”

She sighed happily. “Oh, a beach,” she said, “Might be nice.  But I don’t see any tourist-y stuff?”

“That’s because we’re in the business district.” he replied.  “The TARDIS will be safest here.”

“In an alleyway?”

“Precisely.  Nobody will notice anything odd, and we can come back any time.”

“So, we’re not staying in the TARDIS?”

“No, we’re going to stay in a hotel.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to need to pack a bag if we’re gonna be here for a long time,” she reminded him. “So we’ll need to go back into the TARDIS.”

His face fell.  “Oh, yes, I’m sorry, I just.   I’ve traveled alone for awhile, and I don’t need-”

She laid her free hand on his arm, feeling her heart twist for him. “Doctor, it’s alright.  But maybe if we’re gonna go all the way undercover, you should get a suitcase too, yeah? Just to fit in a bit.”

His smile came back to his face tenfold and he nodded happily. “Yeah, alright.”

They disappeared back into the TARDIS and separated to pack.  The TARDIS had helpfully laid out a bigger on the inside suitcase for Rose since even the ship didn’t know what the pair of them would need on this planet.  

Rose patted the ship’s wall in thanks.  “What should I pack, then?  You know this planet?” She asked the ceiling.

The TARDIS flickered the lights over a specific drawer in her dresser. She went over to it and looked inside, finding only tank tops and shorts and various other light clothing.  She raised her eyebrows.  

“It’s hot, then?”

The TARDIS seemed to want to tell her that yes, it was going to be very warm.  Then, quite suddenly, a flurry of pink fabric hit the floor.  Rose startled and jumped away for it, ready for an attack.

She grinned when she saw what it was, and she picked up the pink sundress. “And what is _this,_ old girl?” She asked.  

The TARDIS urged her to put it on, and Rose giggled, unable to refuse.  It cinched right below her breasts with a gold band and then flowed out all the way to her fleet. It reminded her of an ancient Greek dress, and she twirled in it for a moment before thanking the time ship.  

Rose was also rather perceptive and noticed that the neckline was rather low. “Are you playing matchmaker?” She asked, hands on her hips.

The TARDIS hummed noncommittally, and Rose marveled at the fact that she was able to communicate with the ship since she had been back.  The Doctor told her it was the Bad Wolf, plus all her experience  in various time streams. Whatever the cause, it made Rose very happy.  By the way the ship talked to her, Rose had an idea that she enjoyed a little girl time as well.  

She looked at herself in the mirror a bit longer before packing up her suitcase with loads of short skirts, sundresses, shorts, and tank tops.  She also packed jackets and a couple pairs of jeans, just in case it got cold.  The weather could be rather finicky on Earth, after all, and she had a feeling it might be much the same on this planet.  Plus, when one had a suitcase that was bigger on the inside, it was easy to overpack.

Finally, she was done, and when she came out to the console room, the Doctor had a suitcase as well, though his wasn't quite as large as hers.  She suspected he had just packed numerous different combinations of his suit. He smiled at her when she came in, and reached for her bag.  “It’s about time,” he said, taking the handle from her.  His smile slipped when he got a good look at her.  “Uh-” he said eloquently, before dragging his gaze back to her eyes and smiling widely.

“Let’s go then, detective!” he said, and bounded out of the TARDIS without waiting for her.  

Rose couldn’t help but laugh, and leaned over to pat the console.  “You tried,” she said sympathetically to the time ship, who grumpily hummed.  

“We’ll see you soon!” Rose called out as she exited the TARDIS after the Doctor.  

The Doctor didn't turn to look at her, just adjusted his grip on the suitcases.  Rose came up behind him and threaded her arm through his, feeling the slip of the fabric of her dress against her legs.  “Ready?” She asked.

He beamed. “You bet.  We have reservations on a beachside hotel. It would be a shame to miss them.”

She nodded. “It sure would.”

He squeezed her arm against his side since he couldn’t hold her hand.  “What do you think, then?”

She leaned her head against his shoulder and then pulled away from him so that he could walk easier.  “A beachside hotel,” She sighed, “Why did you pick this, then?  You could probably take us to a volcano planet with lots of trouble.”

He hummed in the back of his throat and led her to a sidewalk.  They were on the edge of the business district, as she could already see the hotels looming overhead.  He glanced over at her for a moment before nodding in front of them, directing her to keep going straight.  She could see palm trees and the flat roads with cars hovering just above the ground.  This, she thought, was going to be brilliant.  

He finally spoke, right after she had forgotten that he was going to speak. “Well, you always said that you never really got to go to the beach as a kid, you know, and I… Um… I remembered.  So I thought we could solve a little mystery but still be on the beach.when we weren’t working on our case.”

She looked over at him and grinned, feeling so happy she might actually burst.

His gaze flicked over to her. “Um.  Is that alright?”

“Alright?  Oh, Doctor, that’s absolutely perfect!” She bounced on her feet a little bit, “Thank you for remembering.”

“Of course!  Massive, Time Lord brain, remember?  There’s hardly a thing in the universe that I am _capable_ of forgetting.”

She giggled. Oh she had missed this.  It promised to be, perhaps, their greatest adventure ever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apparently I did not explain where Donna was, as someone pointed out to me (Thank you, MissTyler! That completely escaped me) I explained it to myself in my head but never put it on paper, which is my fault, and I apologize for that, so the explanation is in this chapter :) Hope you enjoy!

They reached the hotel with Rose bouncing happily on the balls of her feet, very excited to finally be on a beach.  

“I know you said we’re here for an adventure,” she said, tugging at his arm, “But once we drop off our bags in our room, can’t we go down to the beach for a bit and walk around.on the sand for a little bit?”

He looked over at her and seemed to be considering.  It was very difficult for him to refuse her anything since she’d been back, so he didn’t want to refuse her something as seemingly insignificant as a little walk on the beach with her in a beautiful dress.

She was watching him, waiting for an answer.  When he didn’t say anything, she grinned and raised her eyebrows at him, all but tapping her toe.  She tilted her head. “Doctor?”

“Oh!  Yes, Rose, I don’t see why not.”

Rose grinned happily and looked towards the beach again as the Doctor led her towards the front doors of their hotel.

The lobby was swimming with different humanoid creatures and decidedly  _ not  _ humanoid creatures.  Rose found that she had missed all the different sights to see and the different people to talk to.  She wanted to hold the Doctor’s hand, but he had stubbornly kept a hold on her bag, even as they checked in.  

“Hello, miss,” a blue man sidled up next to Rose, a salacious grin on her face that reminded her, quite violently, of Captain Jack.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Hello.”

“I could carry your bags upstairs for you,” he said, holding a hand out.

Ah. Well, at least he only wanted money and not a sexual favor.  She was about to reply when the Doctor glanced over and furrowed his brows.  

“Excuse me.  I’m afraid we won’t be needing a bellhop, thank you.  I’m quite capable of carrying both our bags.”  He shot daggers at the alien, who slunk away with a scowl on his face.  The Doctor went back to signing the papers for their reservation.  

Rose lightly slapped his shoulder. “Well, that was a bit rude,” she said, “He probably just wanted some extra money.”

“I know that species, Rose. He was going to take our money and then invite himself into our room.”  He smiled at the woman behind the counter and took the key cards, immediately passing them off to Rose.  “And he would’ve either tried to seduce us or kill us.”

He picked up both their bags again and walked towards the lift. Rose moved quickly after him, her eyes a bit wide.  “Well hang on a second, then why is he allowed in this hotel, on this  _ planet,  _ if his species is known for killing?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Dunno.  Not my division.”

“Doctor, everything is your division.”

He hummed happily in the back of his throat, but didn’t say anything else as Rose pressed the button and they got into the lift.  She had a feeling that he was finished talking about it now, and it wouldn’t do any good to push him on it.

“Everything looks like it would be on Earth,” Rose said, examining the inside of the elevator.  “Is the beach any different?”

The Doctor nodded.  “The water is a bit warmer than you’re used to, and you won’t sunburn.”

“No sunburn? How?”  She was delighted at the prospect but had no idea how such a thing would work.

He shifted his grip on their bags. “Well, Miss Tyler, the UV rays here are different, structurally, that is. So then, the sun here will burn the locals, but not you, with your tough human skin.”

“Funny, you’re always going on about how thin and delicate human skin is.”

He made a face at her. “Yes, but not yours,” he insisted, “And just not in this case. I’m allowed to be inaccurate once in awhile.”

“Like twelve months instead of twelve hours?”

“My God, that was years ago, can’t you let it go?” He said, but he was laughing as he shook his head.

The lift door opened on the eleventh floor and Rose led the way to their room, finding the door with odd symbols instead of a number, and opened it up, keeping the door open so that he could take both their bags in.

Rose closed the door behind them and followed him into the suite.  It was posh to say the least, with a living room right there in front of them, and a tiny kitchenette to the side.  

“This isn’t a hotel room, this is a flat!” Rose cried, running back to the master bedroom, which was the other room inside the room.  It was huge, but of course, there was only one bed.  She blew out her cheeks, not sure on how the Doctor was going to take that.  They hadn’t shared a bed since she’d been back, and she wasn’t sure if he would flip out or not.  She really hoped he wouldn’t.  

He came up behind her with their bags just then, looking over her shoulder.  “Ah,” he said.  “This again. Would you like the side nearest to the balcony?”

She blinked, almost disappointed that he was acting so calm.  So, it really was just going to be like old times. That wasn’t really what she wanted, she realized, but she had to pretend it was, as she had pretended for the two years they had been together and all the time they’d been apart.  She looked over her shoulder and grinned at him before finally taking her bag and walking into the room.

“Yes, I would, actually,” She said, “Is that alright?”

“Rose, if it wasn’t alright, I would’ve just taken it myself.”

She laughed and set the bag down on her bed.  “I’ll have to hang some stuff up in the closet, and then we can go.”

“Hang on, I want you to see something first,” he said, tugging her by the hand to the balcony door.  Pushing aside the curtains, he pulled her in after him and grinned happily at her.  “Take a look at that beach, Rose Tyler.  That’s paradise, and much better than any old dirty, polluted Earth beach.”

She let out a little sigh and leaned on the railing.  The waves were high, crashing on the sand that was far darker than Earth sand.  “That’s beautiful,” She said, wincing at the dreamy quality in her voice.

He leaned against the railing next to her, chuckling. “It is, isn’t it? I wanted you to see the view.”

“Have you been here before?”

“Once, fresh out of the Academy, thought I deserved a vacation,” He said, shaking his head. “I was young and stupid though, I didn’t need to relax, I needed to get out of my solar system and make a difference.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. That was one thing that had changed about her relationship with him. He was very willing to talk about his past now, thinking that if he could share it with anyone, it would be her.  She wished she could comfort him in a way better than this, but she would always do her best when it came to him. 

“Everyone needs a break sometimes, Doctor.”

“Mm.  Not me, I don’t have time for breaks.”

“You’re taking time right now, Doctor.”

“That’s different, you’re with me,” he said, lacing his fingers with hers and holding them perched on the railing.

She stared at their linked hands, how her skin was a bit tanner than his just since she was human and vulnerable to the sun.  The jumps had been to other places except London, of course, through the dimension cannon, so once in awhile she’d catch a little sun.  Their hands looked different now, like they fit together better.  They’d fit before, but this was something new.  

“How is it different because you’re with me?” she asked. 

He shrugged, jostling her head a little.  “Because, of course… You know, sometimes you need a break.  And I like to take breaks with you.”

“Well, I know you sleep now.  Donna said you were catching a couple hours a night anymore.”

“How the hell did Donna know that?” he demanding, feeling a bit invaded. 

Rose giggled. “She couldn’t hear you knocking about the hallways like you usually do.  You’re not as quiet as you think, Doctor, I’d heard you be all awake too.”  She pulled her head up from his shoulder. “Oh, no, Donna would have  _ loved  _ it here,” she said in dismay. “We should’ve gotten her from her mum’s house.”

“No, she told us to come get her after we’d had six months to get used to each other again,” he scolded her, “And she said she’d know if it was a minute earlier.  And she means it when she says stuff like that.”

Rose sighed. “I still feel bad.  Besides, I think we’re rather used to each other.”

“Tired of me already?”

She looked up at him.  “Never.  Come on, let me put my clothes away so that we can go to that beach!”

She skipped away from him with a kiss on the cheek, letting him stand there with a smile on his face as he stared off into the sea.

Rose hung up all her dresses and put all her folded clothes into drawers. She knew the Doctor wouldn’t unpack a thing and would insist on living out of the suitcase, but Rose couldn’t operate like that. Not after all the hopping she’d done to get back.  She put her hands on her hips and took in her little set up before calling the Doctor back out.

He wiggled his fingers at her as he came in from the balcony. “Give me the room keys.”

“Why?” She asked, “I can hold them.”

“You don’t have any pockets,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her.

“And you’ll look ridiculous with all those layers on,” she protested.  “Take your jacket and your tie off. You look like you’re here for a business meeting.”

He groaned and rolled his eyes, but did as she bid.  She couldn’t look away while he did it, and she had a feeling he could tell.  He held his hand out for her and shoved their key cards in his trouser pocket.  

“They’ll slip out of there,” she objected as she simultaneously took his hand and swiped the sonic screwdriver from his jacket on the bed with her other hand.  She handed it to him. “You’re hopeless,” she said sweetly.

He laughed and took the tool, shoving that in his pockets.  “Pockets are bigger on the inside,” he said smugly.

“Ah, of course they are,” she said.  

He pulled her along towards the door.  “And after we visit the beach, we’ll pay a visit to the people expecting us.  How does that sound?”

“Brilliant,” she said.  “We’re not gonna be late, are we?”

“Nah. I didn’t say when we were coming.”

Their trip to the beach was very quick, as their hotel was  _ literally  _ on the beach.  They walked right out of a side door and into the dark sand.  Rose sighed happily and toed of her sandals before wiggling her toes into the grains, looking down at her painted toenails.  

“This is wonderful,” she said.

The Doctor couldn’t help but laugh at her.  “Rose, we’re only one step onto the beach.”

“I love the beach,” she decided firmly.  “Let’s get towards the water, hm?”

With her shoes in one hand and Rose’s hand in the other, she had a feeling that her life  could not get any better than this.  She was genuinely at her happiest, and she had a feeling she was about to lose her mind with it.  

“Why are you smiling like that?” he asked, squeezing her hand in his.

She shrugged, trying and failing to fight the grin off of her face. “I dunno, ‘m just happy,” she said, kicking the sand in front of her.  He hummed in response, seeming to be quite happy as well, though he might not ever say it.

She was lost in the look of the beach, and the feeling of his cool palm pressed against hers.  She was aware that everything was about to go downhill, since they were going into this  _ knowing  _ there was trouble, so she wanted to enjoy the last few moments of clear silence with the Doctor.

“You gonna tell me what we’re up against?” She asked, bumping his shoulder as she looked around at the people playing on the beach, and the waves starting to lap at her feet.  “After all, you seemed pretty excited about it.”  She hoped that teasing him into it would make him tell her, as she was starting to get excited for an adventure when she had no idea what was ahead.  Maybe she wasn’t in the right outfit for this, and she should put on some shorts and a tank top, better for running.  Although, this dress was nice and flowy, so it would be alright for her to run in.  Maybe she was overanalyzing this.  

“Nah!” he said exuberantly in response to her question. “Where would the fun be in that?” He stopped and stared out at the ocean. “Besides, it would be a shame to waste a view so beautiful.”

She glanced out at him and then at the water, where the sun was high up, striking the water and making it glitter.  “Yeah, you’re right,” she said, squeezing his hand again. “Let’s just stay here for a minute.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is starting off a bit slow so I can establish all the little things about the environment, but it'll pick up:) I hope you enjoy!

Eventually, though, Rose and the Doctor had to leave the beach.  She did it with a dramatic sigh over her shoulder at the water, which made the Doctor laugh.  

“We’ll be back,” he said confidently.

“Yeah, to sleep in our hotel.” 

He gave her a look that said he really knew something that she didn’t.  She raised her eyebrows at him, knowing that look.  She had missed it.  

“Oh?” She said. “Fine then, lead on.”

They came back up onto a concrete sidewalk by the beach, bordering a boardwalk.  Across from that were numerous beach houses, some hotels, and restaurants.  Rose could smell roasted peanuts and thought everything seemed violently American, and she told the Doctor as such.

“It kind of is,” he said, wrinkling his nose.  “Very commercial, lots and lots and  _ lots  _ of fried food,” he swung her hand happily as they walked.  “

She laughed.  “Guess so.  So, you know where we’re going then?”

He nodded, “Yep, going a bit up the road here.  Beach house.  Lovely young man owns it, and he needs a detective.”

“A detective for this weird thing that you won’t tell me about,” Rose reminded him, peering up into his face. 

His expression, for possibly the first time in his life (with her, at least), did not display his emotions.  “You’ll see in a minute.”

They approached a little white beach house, which was a bit modest in comparison to the other houses on the road. It had a small balcony with two blue beach chairs on it, making Rose think of a cheap postcard someone might send.  She looked around at the curtains billowing in front of open windows and smiled.  It all looked very serene, but she had a feeling it was very different on the inside of the house, especially with whatever was happening in there.  

The Doctor rapped sharply on the door and fished out the psychic paper with one hand.  He beamed at Rose, who was slipping her shoes back on and therefore didn’t see him, before the door was flung open.  

When the Doctor had said ‘young man’, Rose severely doubted he knew how young. The man, or  _ boy,  _ really, had dark curly hair and expressive eyes.  He had to be Rose’s age, if not a little younger.  Rose almost rolled her eyes.  It probably wasn’t something to work out, just a kid being paranoid as he lived off his parents money in a beach house.   
“Hello!” The Doctor said, not bothered at all by the things Rose was seeing.  “Detectives John Smith and Rose Tyler,” here, he flashed the psychic paper as Rose straightened fully, looking to hold the Doctor’s hand again but having a feeling it wouldn’t be very appropriate at this particular moment.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” the boy gushed, his accent thick American, not unsimilar to Jack’s.  “I’m Achaz, I’m the one you spoke to about that carnival.”

Rose furrowed her brows and glanced at the Doctor.  Actually, maybe it would have been better for her to have a bit of debriefing before all this started. She turned and smiled at Achaz. “It’s nice to meet you Achaz.  Can we come in and discuss the situation with you?”

Achaz looked at her, as though seeing her for the first time, and smiled. “Yes!  Of course, come in, can I get you something to drink?”

“Do you have any tea?” Rose asked, “I could absolutely murder a cuppa.”

“Alright,” Achaz set up a very futuristic looking coffee maker that sat on the table by a couch, as though it had no use at all in a kitchen.  It was lit with blue lights when Achaz snapped his fingers and tea pumped out of it into a white mug with a wave of his hand over the top of it.  The cup handed itself to Rose by floating over to her and she tried not to act surprised, though she had a feeling that it wasn’t as convincing as she would’ve liked. 

“Thank you,” she smiled, taking a sip of it and finding it perfectly to her liking.  She wondered what about the drink maker made it know how she took her tea. If she was honest, she didn’t much like the idea of a telepathic teamaker, but that might just be what she was dealing with.   

“Anything for you?” Achaz asked.

“No, no, I don’t drink on the job, tea or otherwise,” he said, forcing a smile.

“Well, come on then, come sit down.”  Achaz scurried over to the very open living area of the house.  The whole bottom floor seemed to be one room actually, as the living room blended into the kitchen and dining room, and straight to a back balcony.  

Rose sat on the couch, the Doctor next to her, and Achaz sat across from them on a smaller sofa.  He stared at them for a minute, as though disbelieving that they were there at all.  He grinned again.  “I wasn’t sure you’d come. I don’t expect anyone to believe me, but everyone on the boardwalk is so stupid, they can’t see what’s right in front of them-”

“Slow down,” Rose said, encouragingly, before taking a sip of her tea.  “Tell us what’s been going on.  Pretend like we’ve never heard a word of it.”

He nodded, and the Doctor let out a subtle huff of laughter next to her.  

“Well,” Achaz said, “Every night I was hearing music in my front yard, which is the beach, and even though sometimes wily musicians go out to play, I didn't think anyone had the stamina to play  _ all night.” _

The Doctor choked.

“-So after awhile of it happening I went to go check it out, and there was a full carnival on the beach, with a giant carousel in the middle of it. That’s where the music was coming from.  I watched it until morning, and in the morning, it was gone.  No one packed it up, no one was even there.”

“Sounds a little scary,” Rose said sympathetically.

Achaz nodded emphatically.  “It was,” he said, “So every night I would go out and see if it was there, and it was.”

“Did you ever try to approach it?” The Doctor asked, leaning forward, planting his elbows on his knees.

“No,” Achaz admitted. “Since no one was there, I didn’t know what I’d get sucked into if I went up to it. That’s when I thought I’d better call some professionals.”

Rose nodded.  “Good call.  So this happens every night?”

“Yeah, around midnight, when everyone is gone off the beach,” Achaz said. “I was hoping you would come and take a look tonight.

“We’d love to,” Rose said before the Doctor could say anything about it.  

The Doctor looked at her and smiled.  “Yeah, we’ll come and check it out,” he said, turning back to Achaz.  “Anything else you’d like to tell us about it?”

Achaz leaned forward, as though someone would overhear them.  “I think… I went to look at it, one night, the closest I ever got to it, and there was some odd feel to it?”   
“What do you mean?” The Doctor asked, sounding a bit frustrated. Achaz seemed to think he was on a police show or something.  “What was odd about it?”

After a moment of hesitancy, Achaz nodded.  “Yeah,” he said, “So, um, it was really cold.   _ Really  _ cold.  And I’ve always heard these old Earth fables that something unnaturally cold usually means that there’s a spirit there, right?”

Rose chewed her bottom lip for a second, thinking. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard too,” she said, “What do you reckon, Detective Smith?”

The Doctor shrugged.  “I don’t want to just guess or assume what it could be before seeing it.  I think we’ll probably scope out the beach a bit before midnight, just to see what else is there.”

Achaz nodded furiously, “Yes!  Yeah, that would be a really good idea.  You can come back here at eleven thirty.  I’ll pay you, I will!”

He sounded so relieved, like all of a sudden, his mind was at ease because there were ‘detectives’ here to help him.  The Doctor held up his hand to Achaz to stop him from talking anymore.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, “We don’t want to accept payment for this. It’s actually a little bit of a vacation for us, actually. Very welcome.”

Achaz’s eyes all of a sudden looked very haunted, like he had seen something that he didn’t want to see, but couldn’t stop thinking about.  “You might not think that after you see this thing.  It’s so weird. I can’t explain it.”

“Are you alright?” Rose asked, leaning forward to touch his knee.  His eyes snapped back to look at her at her touch.  He suddenly looked very worried.

“I don’t know… I don’t… I’m scared,” he admitted, as Rose withdrew her hand.  He laced his fingers together. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, “You’re my last hope.”

Rose smiled, trying to seem encouraging.  “I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” she said, “Detective Smith and I are the best at what we do, there’s no need to worry.”

Achaz seemed to look a bit more relieved at that, his eyebrows drooping a little lower.  “Thank you,” he said, “ _ Thank  _ you.”

“Of course,” Rose said, “We’ll take another look at the beach before midnight, and then we’ll come back at eleven thirty, like you said,” her voice was soothing, like a mother’s would be if her child was fussing.  She leaned back in her seat.  “That sound alright?”

Achaz didn’t seem to know anything else about the carnival, since he hadn’t gotten close to it, and Rose and the Doctor decided to go back to the beach and look over the sands in front of Achaz’s house.  

“We’ll see you tonight, alright?  Try not to worry too much,” she said, smiling reassuringly.  “It’ll be okay.”

Achaz nodded and thanked them profusely before they left the house.  

The Doctor didn’t want to go all the way back to the hotel to get sandals, so he just put their shoes on the edge of the boardwalk and then walked down to the middle of the beach just in front of Achaz’s home.  He sat down immediately, patting the sand next to him for Rose to sit down.  

She sat next to him, tilting her head back and letting the sun wash over her as her eyes fluttered closed.  “Doesn’t feel weird,” she said softly, almost mumbling.

The Doctor chuckled, shifting his fingers through the sand. “It’s not any different than regular sand.  At least, not to the touch.”

Rose cracked her eyes open and stared at him. “Don’t you  _ dare-” _

He cut her off by looking her dead in the eyes and licking the sand.  She groaned and flopped all the way onto her back.  “You are unbelievable.”

He snapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth.  “Nothing odd about it,” he said.  “Nothing metallic tasting or sharp, nothing from off world.  All perfectly safe.”

“Spit it out,” she said, laughing.

He grinned at her, reminding her very much of their first time on New Earth.  “Well, we’ve narrowed it down a little bit by me tasting it.”

“Narrowed it down to what?”

“That the taste isn’t any different than normal sand.”

She laughed and put her hands over her face. “I cannot believe you.”

He sprung to his feet and then pulled her up with him when she put her hands in his. “I think we should go back to the room and get some dinner before we talk about this further.”

“Okay,” she agreed, as they walked back to the boardwalk to get their shoes.  “Maybe we can look on the internet here and see if anyone else knows anything about this.”   
“Good idea,” The Doctor enthused.  He reached for her hand again.  “That is, I’m pretty sure they have the internet here.”

Rose giggled and looked back at Achaz’s house as they walked.  She wished she knew what lay ahead.  Aliens and dictators she could deal with.     
Something that might be paranormal?  Not so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please review?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'echoes of the past' idea comes from an old acting teacher I had, FYI

 

Rose expressed the interest in ordering up dinner and eating on the plastic lawn chairs and table on the corner of the balcony.  He agreed, because of course, how could he deny her anything?

She stared out at the water, almost as if nothing else existed, and in that moment, really, nothing else did.  It was very serene, which was something she had missed over the recent part of her life.  It was always hectic, always running, always setting up a new jump in the Dimension Cannon.  It had been, really, since she was nineteen and ran away with the Doctor, that she had sat down and had a moment to herself.   
He slipped out onto the balcony, hotel phone in hand. It was nothing like an Earth phone, thin and transparent, the blue buttons built into the screen seen from any side.  He held it up and shook it at her. 

“What do you want?” He asked.

She grinned. “Surprise me.”

He made a face at her. “Okay, well, give me a hint.”

“I trust you.”

He chuckled, shaking his head.  “If you don’t like it, you can have what I get.   


“I wouldn’t even know what to get,” she said, “There’s probably different food here.”

After a moment, he nodded. “Yes, but there’s a menu I could get you.”

She wrinkled her nose at him.  “You can just pick for me.  You know what I like, after all.”

“Chips.”

“Nah! Don’t get me chips,” she giggled, knowing he was kidding.  “Get me something exotic.”

He looked down at the phone.  “Dessert?” He asked over his shoulder, about to disappear into the room to make the call.

“Of course,” She said, rolling her eyes at him.  

She stared out at the ocean, which seemed to pull a bit differently than any Earth sea. She wondered if it had anything to do with the moon (or moons) and how close it was to the planet.  She leaned her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, watching the sun- oh.  Suns.  

A minute later the Doctor emerged and left the door to the balcony open so they would know when their food was there.  He scooted the other chair over clower to hers and sat in it. 

“So what do you think?” He asked.

“Of your mystery?”

“Yes.”

She smiled.  “I’m interested.  Achaz seems a little spacy, and I can’t help but think that might be because of whatever carnival that he’s seeing.”

He nodded, jaw set. “Yeah, I can see that.  It makes sense.”   
They were a quiet for a moment, both of their minds working quickly, as they always did.  Rose finally remembered her question from earlier.  “Hey,” she nudged his knee and he snapped back to attention.

“What is it?” He asked.

“Is the moon different here?” she countered, gesturing out at the water.  “The waves look kind of weird.”   
“It’s bigger,” the Doctor said.  “Pulls the waves harder.  The gravity here is a little different, but not enough for either of our bodies to take notice,” he glanced over at her fondly.  “You always think of the best questions,” He said.

She blushed, completely against her will.  “Stop that,” she said, rolling her eyes.     
“No, never,” he said, grinning.  “You’re cleverer than you give yourself credit for.  Why do you think I want to hang around you all the time?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Dunno, guess I thought it was my remarkable wit.”

He snorted.  “Oh, certainly not that.”

They quieted for a moment and Rose spoke again.  “I never..  We’ve never dealt with anything paranormal before.”

“We don’t know that this is paranormal,” the Doctor replied. 

“Yeah, but what else could it be?  I’ve never met aliens that could just come out of nowhere.  That’s not something that happens.”

“Sometimes,’ he said, “Maybe it’s just not something you’ve seen before.  Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

She pondered that for a moment.  That was true, she had to acknowledge it.  “But that also doesn’t mean it  _ does  _ exist.”

He squinted into the setting sun.  “You’re right,’ He said, “It doesn’t.  But we can sure hope.”   


“Would you rather it be aliens or the paranormal?” She asked, almost afraid of the answer.  He reached out and took her hand, lacing their fingers together.  

“I don’t know,” he said, “Even when there were ghosts, Rose, they weren’t really ghosts.  THere was a moment when they seemed to be, but they aren’t.  And now, maybe there’s an explanation.  I don’t believe in ghosts, you know that.”

“Then what?  What would explain it?”  She asked, leaning closer to him, trying to get him to talk faster.  

“Echoes of the past.”

She wrinkled her brow in confusion. “No.  It can’t be that.  The way Achaz talked about it, it was a real thing, tangible, with sound.”

“But he didn’t touch it,” he replied, lifting a finger.  “Could still be an echo.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she protested, “You’re making that up.”   


He shook his head, chuckling a little. “No, I’m not.  Okay, see,” he sat up a little straighter in his chair, preparing his free hand to wave as he spoke.  She wasn’t sure the man could talk without making a gesture or pulling his ear.

“An echo from the past is just time leaking,” He began, “There might have been a carnival a very long time ago, and every night, it might just bleed through a bit.  So, we see the carnival, and hear the carnival, and we think it’s a ghost, but it’s not.  Just the past unsure of where it fits into history.”

Rose furrowed her brows.  “So, wait, hang on.  It’s just a piece of time that’s lost?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t know it’s lost.  It just… continues to exist quite happily in its own time, unaware of any of us, but it appears in another timeline or just farther in the future.  The whole thing is perfectly normal, all things considered.”

“We’ll still have to fix it, though, won’t we?” She asked, not imagining how they could leave something like that go.  It would continue to terrify people, even if it was normal.  

Although, many normal things made people afraid, in her experience.

“I think we would have to patch it up to restore Achaz’s peace of mind,” the Doctor admitted.  “And to not freak out anybody else.  Though it’s surprising no one else has reported anything wrong.”

“And what if the carnival is clearly modern and not old?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow, trying to catch him off guard.  

He made a face at her, not phased by her question. “Well, then, I’m going to have to admit that I was wrong and you’ll probably laugh at me.”

She giggled, “No I wouldn’t.”  She regarded him carefully for a moment, and he turned to look at her.

“What?”

“We’ve never discussed a phenomenon quite this much before running headfirst into it. What’s gotten into you?”

He smiled a little.  “I’m going to look out for you,” He said, “I can’t throw us into danger anymore, not now that you’re back.”

“Why not?”   


“I can’t lose you again.”   
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re not gonna lose me,” she said, “Don’t worry about it.”   
He sighed and shook his head.  “I’m always gonna worry.  You're still my best mate, Rose.”

“Nah,” she smiled, “You’ve got Donna now.”

“She was never a replacement for you,” the Doctor said firmly, staring at her.  She glanced back at him before looking back at the ocean.     
‘Where’s our dinner?” She teased.

He smiled, but it was tight and uncomfortable, as though he wasn't quite done talking yet, but since the Doctor was never someone who initiated these kinds of serious discussions. She found that, after all this trouble, after all she went through to get back to him, she didn’t have any use for talking with him about her feelings. 

It was also very clear to Rose that anything more than a friendship was not on the Doctor’s radar, so she resigned herself to the friendship they had had before.

A little knock on their door was her saving grace, and she breathed out a sigh as the Doctor stood up, pulling his hand from hers, and walked into the room.  She heard the door open, heard a few polite words get exchanged, and then the door closed again.

He walked back to her, pulling the little plastic table in front of them and putting down a large silver tray.  

“What did you get?” she asked, shifting forward a bit.

He pointed down at some little purple wafers.  “Try these first, they’re an appetizer.”

“What are they?” 

“If crackers on your planet were sophisticated, they would taste like this.”

She laughed, looking up at him with laughter in her eyes.  “Are you saying saltines aren’t sophisticated?”

He tutted and sit down.  “That is exactly what I’m saying,” he informed her, and took one of the little wafers for himself.

Rose thought that he would order them two large meals, but instead there was one platter with various different appetizers and side dishes, with a large piece of what looked like steak in the middle.  

“What’s that?” She asked, pointing at the meat.

“It’s an animal from this planet, similar to the moose on your planet.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever eaten… Moose.  Has anyone eaten moose?”

“I said it was  _ similar  _ to moose, in the way they look.  Not moose.”  He gestured to the silverware. “Try it.”

She picked up the little wafer-like cracker that he had suggested for her and put it in her mouth.  It was like a cracker in that it was crunchy, but that was where the similarities ended.  It was sweet instead of salty and the flavor was completely different.  She hummed in the back of her feet and tapped her toes onto the floor.  

The Doctor huffed out a laugh as he instructed her through the different foods.  They tasted them together, Rose asking him questions about them.  The Doctor seemed more than happy to talk about the food, and they sipped water that also tasted lightly sweet as they ate.

“Dessert?” The Doctor asked when the food was all gone.

She raised her eyebrows. “I forgot about it. Where did you put it?”

“Right here,” the Doctor scrambled back into the room with his tray in hand and then came out with a different, smaller tray.  He set it on the table and Rose felt her eyes widened.

It was pink, and shaped like a rose.  It seemed to hover a bit over the tray and she gasped.  “What is it?” she asked. 

“Cheesecake,” he said simply.  He tapped the bottom of the tray and the petals of the rose fell apart into small, bite sized pieces of cake.

“How does it do that?” She demanded, clasping her hands together under her chin. “That was brilliant!”

The Doctor preened, feeling very pleased with himself for making a good choice.  “Can’t reveal all the secrets, Rose Tyler, or there will be no wonder in those eyes of yours when we go to new places.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Fine, if you say so.”  She said.  “I think I’ll always think everything is fascinating,” she said, “I’m so happy to be back.”

He grinned at her, pleased that she wanted to be with him still. Too quickly, their quiet moment ended as the Doctor calculated the time in his mind.  “We should probably get going,” he said.

“Have we been out here that long?” She asked, surprised.     
Ah, yes. It was dark out.

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose I lost track of time for a bit, too.  Allons-y!”   
He leapt out of his chair and ran back into the room.  Rose stared out at the sea for another moment, wondering how it had gotten so dark around her so fast without her noticing.  Her heart sped up with the prospect of a new adventure, and then she was quickly right behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO SORRY it took me so long to upload this. I hope you enjoy!

They hadn’t even reached the house when they saw Achaz pacing about on the beach. No one else was there, all rental umbrellas packed in and chair marks still pressed into the sand.  Rose felt the breeze brush along her dress and she hummed happily before zeroing back in on the present.

The Doctor’s hand held hers, and she was closer to the ocean, so she chanced glances out to it as they neared Achaz, who had spotted them. He waved happily at them, though his eyes looked a bit panicked.

“You’re early,” he remarked bluntly. Rose cocked an eyebrow at him.

“So are you,” she replied.

He shrugged. “I didn’t want you to come early and think I wasn’t coming, so… So here I am.”

They regarded each other a little awkwardly for a while, waiting for someone to say something.  Achaz checked his wristwatch, a holographic thing that he tapped and the time appeared in odd symbols above the surface.  

“Why isn’t the TARDIS translating that?” Rose whispered, Achaz so distracted he didn’t even notice they were talking.

“It’s a classical system,” the Doctor said quietly, “The TARDIS doesn’t like it.”

“What, she’s being picky now?”

He chuckled, nodding.  “Essentially, yes.”

Rose smiled a little.  “That’s new.”

The Doctor shrugged.  “She’s always a bit cheeky when you’re around.”

That made Rose feel a bit proud of herself, knowing that things were different when she was home.  She _wanted_ them to be different, regardless of whatever her relationship with the Doctor was.  It was like she was right where she was supposed to be, and she knew it.  

“So what time is it?” Rose asked.

“Eleven fifty.”

Achaz shut his watch and looked at the sand.  “I hope the two of you don’t think I’m crazy,” he said, looking nervously between the two of them.

Rose waved him off with her free hand.  “We’ve still got ten minutes, Achaz.  Let’s just all go back to your house and sit down.  We don’t want this thing to show up right overtop of us.”

Achaz smiled, looking relieved, and led the two of them back to his house.  Rose made to sit on one of the chairs on the little porch and Acha gestured nearly violently for her to do so.  She smiled and sat down.  The Doctor leaned against the wall next to the door and crossed his arms.  

She watched him, waiting for something to happen. She was trying not to blink, honestly, in case she missed it all.

“Do you think we should try to go into the carnival?” Rose asked, turning towards the Doctor with just her head, keeping her eyes fixed on the spot.  

He nodded, his eyes looking a bit far away. “I would say yes,” he said, “Achaz said that he hasn’t, yet.”

Achaz shook his head. “Like I said, I thought it would be better to wait for a professional, you know?”

“Makes sense,” Rose said, trying to be reassuring with as nervous as he seemed to be. She smiled warmly, “It’ll be alright, Achaz.  Just relax.  We’re professionals, yeah?  So you don’t need to worry at all.”  
Achaz seemed to be soothed by her words, which, the Doctor had to notice, was often the case with Rose.  Anytime people were anywhere near her they seemed to be soothed by her quite easily.  He smiled fondly at her, watching her interact with Achaz.  She was naturally kind, and he was glad that Pete’s World hadn’t hardened her.   
Oh, she was more mature, yes, more willing to see things from an open perspective, but she was still exactly the girl he had met all those years ago.  She was kind and gentle and so perfect for this life, even if he didn’t fit quite right into hers the way he wanted to.  He could never settle down, and he wondered if she could even stand to, now that she’d seen the universe.

“Doctor?”

“Yes?” his gaze snapped back to Rose’s, and her lip twitched.  He must have zoned out on her. He smiled sheepishly at her and she grinned back.

“It’s almost time,” Rose said, “Just trying to get you back down to where all the people are, that’s it.”  She picked at the skin next to her nail and looked up with another smile.

“Right!  Of course.”

Just at that moment, a filtering sound of carnival music crept through the air that had just begun to settle over them.  Rose furrowed her brows, listening. Her eyes fixed on the sand as she watched the sound come alive in lights.  They swirled about the ocean and sand over and over again until a carousel twisted into view, spinning leisurely around and around.

The music groaned and creaked to life as the carnival seemed to set itself up.  Everything was moving and acting like it was happening on a regular summer afternoon.  Although, maybe it was eerie because there were no people there. She had a feeling that that whole idea meant that it couldn’t be an echo. There would have to be people if the echo was alive at the same time the carnival was running.  It _had to._

The three of them stood, speechless, watching the empty activity of the carnival, discomfort settling in all of their bones.  The Doctor found that he was gaping.  He wasn’t sure he believed that Achaz had been telling the truth, but this wasn’t the sort of thing someone made up, he supposed.  Not that that meant he knew what to do.  For the first time since finding Rose again, he didn’t know what to do. He looked over to her and saw clearly in her face that her mind was working a mile a minute, trying to keep up with the events happening around her.

Rose felt a chill run up her spine.  Something about that made her uncomfortable, and she wasn’t sure why. She knew there were sometimes fairs or carnivals on beaches, but they were on piers and decks, not built on top of the sand. It was stupid to do it that way, and the logic side of her brain lit up when she saw the rest of it appearing.  

“Oh, my God,” she said softly, as it fully materialized.  “How does that-”

“That is _brilliant!”_ The Doctor said excitedly, rocking back on his heels and grinning like an absolute loon.  Rose laughed, despite herself.

“That’s terrifying!” Achaz cried, “Not brilliant!”

Rose and the Doctor, however, had a much different perspective on the whole matter than Achaz did.  They saw the beauty in it, even though Rose’s heart pounded hard with fear in her chest. She wasn’t sure what to do, but she knew she felt like she had to be close to it.  It drew her in and she knew enough to know she should try to avoid that instinct.

She pressed her back into her chair, trying not to go towards it.  “Do you feel that, Achaz?” She demanded.  
“F-feel what?” he stuttered.

“The pull, the urge to go to it,” she said urgently, needing to know what he was thinking, as the other human in the area.

Achaz’s brows furrowed and he nodded slowly.  “Yeah,” he said, “I do.”

“Then, I want to go,” The Doctor said, “We need to see what’s going on there, or else we’ll never figure anything out!”

He bounced forwards and gestured for Rose and Achaz to follow. Rose was up on her feet in an instant and bolted after the Doctor without even looking behind her.  

It really was a full carnival.  Carousel, ferris wheel, games, the whole nine yards, but none of them had people around them.  That was enough to be quite chilling and she almost ran back to Achaz’s porch.  She almost reached for the Doctor’s hand, too, but she had a feeling that there were some things that she was supposed to do on her own.

The lights whirled in an almost manic pattern, making her feel even more uneasy.  But maybe, she reminded herself, maybe it was all an apparition, an echo of the past, as the Doctor had said.  In a way, it would make sense.  The Doctor seemed to slow as she went forward, drawn to the carousel, with an electric pull that made any tiredness drain out of her in a moment.  She felt like her blood was on fire, and she wavered a bit, her feet slipping on the sand.  The Doctor shot out a hand to her elbow to steady her, and looked at her worriedly.

“Alright?”

“We should touch it,” She blurted out, “So we can see if it’s one of those- not a ghost- if it’s actually here or not.”

She seemed disoriented, he noted, and so did Achaz.  The Doctor furrowed his brows at the two of them. There was certainly something odd about this, and the longer he thought about it, the more he was certain that this wasn’t anything normal that could possibly happen.  He refused to believe it was paranormal.

The Doctor tugged Rose by the elbow away from the carousel - it made him quite uneasy as well - and called for Achaz. The man snapped out of his trance and followed the two of them as the Doctor led the way towards the carnival games.  It seemed like the safest option, the safest thing to touch… The less metal if it was real.

Rose shook her head. “Doctor, it’s making my head feel odd.”

“I know,” the Doctor said, “There’s something going on here.  Why don’t you and Achaz go back to the porch, and I’ll investigate this further?”

Rose shook her head _again,_ this time a bit more violently.  Her brows furrowed in more anger than concentration.  “No,” she said, “I’m coming with you.  Every bloody adventure from now on, I’m coming with you.  Don’t you understand that?”

The Doctor was a bit surprised by her outburst and felt his own eyebrows raise.  “I know that, Rose, but I need you to be safe, too.”  

Achaz was watching the both of them.  “I think as long as the three of us stick together, we’ll be alright,” He said.

Rose nodded. “I agree.”

“I suppose I can follow that.” the Doctor said reluctantly, watching the red and orange lights dance across Rose’s face in a way that also lit her eyes.  The fire within her spirit seemed to pull from it too, and he swallowed hard. He was not going to be able to deal with this.

Rose stepped forward, away from him.  She knew he would try to protect her, but that would ultimately lead to her being locked away in the TARDIS and never experiencing anything.  She walked towards the carnival games, with no one to man them and no one except the three of them to play them.  

She touched the edge of the game, feeling the odd tarp-like feeling of the cover around the edges of the game booth.  She looked at it, seeing the simple ‘knock-the-milk-bottle-over’ game set up there.  She squinted at it.  She wondered if it was just as unwinnable as regular carnival games.  She wasn’t sure that would explain anything, but it would keep realism in check.

“It’s real,” she affirmed.

Achaz looked ashen, like he had really expected this to all be a figment of his imagination.  He swallowed hard. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.

“Well, we’ll have to dig a bit deeper before any of us can know what to do.” the Doctor said, trying to sound reassuring and not quite managing it.  

“What do you think it’s here for, if it’s real?” Achaz asked.

Rose lifted a shoulder and cocked her head to the side.  She was still staring at the game, trying to put pieces of a puzzle together that didn’t quite fit.  “I think we’re supposed to do something,” she said.

  
The Doctor furrowed his brows at her. “Okay?” He said, “Rose, I’m sorry, what do you mean?” He asked.  “That doesn’t make a lot-”

She turned to him, the spark of adrenaline in her eyes stopping him breathless in his tracks.  Her whole body seemed alight with the adventure, and she said softly, “We’re supposed to win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review?


	6. Chapter 6

  
A chill ran down the Doctor’s spine. “What do you mean, Rose?” He asked, and a quick glance at Achaz told him that the young man was just as confused.  

“The games,” she said, “We’re supposed to win, all of them.”

The Doctor grabbed her arm just as Rose reached for a ball to throw at some milk bottles.  “Hang on, Rose.  Something’s not right.”   


Achaz nodded. “I feel it too,” he said, “Something’s weird about this, weirder than it is when we’re far away from it.”

“Explain,” the Doctor demanded.

She shook her head, an entirely vacant look in her eyes, as though she couldn’t focus in on anything even if she tried.  She furrowed her brows in frustration, opening and closing her mouth.  “It’s asking me to win.”

“No,” the Doctor said firmly, “No, we are not doing what the carnival  _ tells  _ us to do.  Not happening.”

Rose seemed to disagree, her lips set into a thin line as she thought about it.  “I think it would be best to do what it says, just this once.”   


The Doctor grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.  Her pupils were blown wide but her eyes couldn’t seem to stay on his. They kept looking over his shoulder, this way and that, nothing making sense to her vacant mind.  He looked over at Achaz, who seemed swayed by the carnival but was nowhere near as responsive to it as Rose. 

“Are you alright?” He asked Achaz.

Achaz nodded and gestured to Rose. “Don’t worry about  _ me,  _ Detective Smith.”   


“Rose, look at me,” the Doctor turned back to Rose.  “This is just the carnival trying to do something to you. I don’t know what.”

She studied him.  “You have to know,” she said, suddenly looking afraid.  “What do I do?”

“I don’t know, Rose.”

She pushed at his chest. “You  _ have  _ to know!  You always know!” She shouted, and turned back to the game.  “And since you don’t know, I’m going to have to figure it out for myself.”

“Stop it,” The Doctor grabbed her arm. “Achaz, it might be best if you and Rose stay back at the house and I finish doing scans on this place until it disappears.”

“Okay, yeah,” Achaz got the hint and took Rose’s other arm, pulling her along.  Rose fought him, and he let her, just so she wouldn’t hurt herself.  The Doctor nodded to the other man over Rose’s head.

“We need to drag her,” the Doctor said, trying to calm Rose.  What he really wanted to do was sweep her up into his arms and carry her bodily all the way back to the porch.  The logical part of him knew that that wasn’t an option while he wasn’t alone, since it would be much easier to contain her (and not fall over) if there were two of them.

She fought them, but it was half-hearted, as though she wasn’t sure what she was fighting, or why she was doing it.  She only seemed to know that she had to, and let her feet continue to slip in the sand.  

“Help,” She said, her voice strained.

“Rose?” The Doctor pulled her up.  “Come on, now, we’re trying to help you, we’ve got to get you away from this.”

“I don’t want to get away,” she protested.  “Please.”

He nodded to Achaz and the two of them pulled her up to the house.  It took longer than it should have, mostly because she was stronger than she looked and couldn’t quite manage to pull the Doctor or Achaz to the sand. She got rather close with Achaz a few times, as he stumbled, but he only stumbled forward, effectively pulling her with him when he went.

After what felt like a lifetime of carnival music blasting their heads and Rose crying out, they finally made it to the porch and sat Rose heavily down in one of the chairs there.  “Stay there,” the Doctor said firmly.

She looked up at him sadly. “I promised I would never leave you,” she said, “I can’t stay up here.”

He squatted in front of her chair, knowing that this was urgent but also knowing that he couldn’t leave her alone in this one moment.  He would go back with Achaz in a moment, but he had to reassure her that he wasn’t leaving her, not really.

“Rose, you’ve got to trust me, okay?  I will come back for you, I will  _ always  _ come back for you, but right now you need to stay here.  It’s safer for you.  Achaz can stay too, and then I’ll go and scan everything in the carnival. Then we can figure out what we need to do, okay?”

She seemed to still have trouble focusing, but she nodded. “Alright,” she said, “We’ll wait here.”

The Doctor smiled at her and stood, clapping his hand on Achaz’s shoulder. “Thank you for looking after her,” he said, “I’ll see if I can get this solved for you.”

Achaz nodded, looking relieved. “Thank you,” he said earnestly.  

The Doctor had him sit in the chair beside Rose, that way, if she was to try to get up, Achaz would be able to stop her. Unfortunately, he knew that if Rose really wanted to get down to him, there would be nothing stopping her.

He went back down to the carnival by himself, hearing Rose grumble behind him as he went. He tried not to let it affect him too much. He’d been alone for too long, in the span between Martha and Donna, and he wasn’t sure that any person had ever made him secure like Rose did.  She was certain, she had promised to stay, whereas Donna nor Martha had ever made such a promise.  It made him wary around them, and he was especially wary around Martha because he knew of her attachment to him.

Shaking himself, he pulled out his sonic and went to scan the game that Rose had been looking at, the one that had been calling to her on some level.  Checking the readings, he found nothing odd.  He furrowed his brows. It wasn’t old.  There was nothing off about it.  It was all the way it was supposed to be, according to the scan.

Not believing it, he moved on to rides, and back to games, until he’d scanned everything but the carousel.  Nothing about anything else that he had scanned was odd, nothing was cause for alarm.  He furrowed his brows and moved slowly towards the carousel, which was still spinning cheerfully as though there was someone actually riding it.

The Doctor wasn’t curious or stupid enough to hop on, so instead he scanned the mechanisms from where he was, hoping to see something.  If he didn’t, he wasn’t sure there was anything to do.  He wasn’t about to sacrifice Rose, Achaz, or himself to see if it was dangerous, and there was no way he was letting anyone in the town get hurt either, if he could help it.

And he was the Doctor. He could help it.

The scan came back and the sonic shut off, waiting for him to read the results.  He looked down at the readings and frowned.  Not a lot of unfamiliar activity showed, but it was enough to make him feel a bit relieved.  At least they weren’t going mad.

The sonic told him what it knew from the scan: that there were unfamiliar particles surrounding the ride, things that even the Doctor hadn’t seen, and something that could prove toxic to Rose if she got too close to it.  Well, that debunked her idea that they had to solve anything. 

The reading was clear, if vaguely so.  There was something here.  What, he didn’t know, and that worried him most of all. The worst thing about regularly saving the universe was that sometimes you didn't know what you were saving it from.

Now though, there was nothing he could do.  For the sonic to complete a  _ full  _ scan, it had to sit for twelve hours and process the information. He scanned the carousel again and shoved the tool in his inner jacket pocket.

He was starting to feel odd, being here by himself, so he legged it on his way back to the porch.  Achaz and Rose wouldn’t be worried, well, at least, Achaz wouldn’t be worried, but he had a feeling that what Rose needed at the moment was sleep before they could talk about what happened or look it over.  

Rose shot to her feet right when she saw him, and Achaz did too, not sure quite what to do with himself, or what she was going to do.  Rose pushed past Achaz even as he protested and ran to give him a hug.

He swept her up and tried to reassure her, before asking softly, “What’s wrong?  Nothing happened.”

“All the hair on my neck stood up on end,” she whispered next to his ear, her voice shaky.  “Something isn’t right here.”

Well, that seemed to be an understatement, but there was nothing he could do about it. He set her down and pulled back, smiling down at her.  “It’s going to be fine, we’ll talk about this at the room.”

He approached Achaz and shook his hand. “Mate, what I want you to do is get some rest. We’ll be back tomorrow night with new information.  Got it?”

“Yes sir.  Thank you,” Achaz seemed relieved, like it was all under control already.  The Doctor forced a grin, but knew that not everything was sorted, not yet.

The three departed after Rose gave Achaz a hug and apologized for her behavior. He, of course, didn’t blame her for anything, and once the two travelers were out of sight, the Doctor reached for her hand.

“Blimey, I feel exhausted.  What were you gonna tell me?”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” The Doctor said, “I’m having the sonic running a scan.  We can’t really talk about it until it’s done.”   


“Alright,” she agreed without argument.

That was odd. “Are you alright?”

She looked him in the eye and nodded. “Embarrassed maybe, but fine.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?”

“I’ve never acted that way before. I’m sorry.”

“Rose, don’t be sorry. There was no way for you to know how that would affect you.”

She was silent, clearly still embarrassed, and he tugged her up against his side, trying to cheer her up.  “It’ll be fine, Rose,” he said, “I promise.”

They made their way back to their hotel and went up to their room.  Rose broke away from the Doctor and went to the balcony, going out to sit by herself.  He knew she felt guilty, and it bothered her, since she had no business at all feeling guilty. He walked out on the balcony and reached his hand to her.  She looked at him warily and slid her smaller hand into his.  He pulled her up and she didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“It’s alright, Rose,” he tried to reassure her.  “It’s completely normal to-”

“I’m not alright with it, though. I should’ve been stronger than that.”  She ran her free hand through her hair, not wanting to let go of him but also feeling rather fidgety.  “I need to go to bed.”

“There’s only one-”

“So we’ll share,” she said curtly.  She sighed, realizing she’d been too harsh with him.  “I wanted to be better this time,” she whispered.  “I wanted to be worthy of traveling with you.”

He made a noise of discontent in this throat and hugged her again. She stiffened but returned the embrace, relaxing into him.  

“I think you’ll find, Rose Tyler, that I am the one not worthy of you.”

She buried her nose into the fabric at his shoulder.  “I’m sorry I caused problems.”

“I am fairly certain that over the course of time, I have caused you more trouble than you’ve caused me.”

She giggled at his blunt tone and nodded, pulling back.  “Okay.  ‘M gonna go shower.”

“You do that.  I’ll just see if I can’t fall asleep.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re not going to shower or anything?”

He made a face at her. “Are you saying I’m manky?”

She giggled and shook her head. “Not at all, no, I just thought I’d ask.  You might be a bit sandy.”

“Well, I’m  _ going  _ to change.”

Within twenty minutes the two of them were ready to go to sleep. The Doctor drew the curtains shut, though they could still hear the waves, and crawled into bed next to her as he explained his sonic scan.

“What do you think you’re going to find?” She asked him in the darkness, her tone hushed.  

He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said, “There was nothing specific enough from the initial scan for me to know.”  he took her hand in his and laid them in the space between them. “But hopefully it’s something we can take care of easily.”

“When has anything ever been easy for us?” Rose asked, her eyes sliding closed.

He chuckled and watched her.  “Good point.”

She fell asleep within minutes, but he watched her for an hour or so longer, listening to the waves and hoping that he was right.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One THOUSAND apologies on taking so long on this! 
> 
> I did not intend for the chapter to be this fluffy... I really didn't. But there is some plot in it, we find out a bit more about the Doctor's sonic scan.

 

Rose woke up curled against the Doctor, her hands under her jaw.  She had woken up sleeping next to him before, even cuddled up against him. This was the first time, since she came back.  She listened to the beat of his hearts and his steady breathing.  His arms were wrapped around her back, loosely, as he was obviously relaxed in sleep.  She wriggled a bit, wondering if the arm under her was asleep.  He just nuzzled his nose into her hair and sighed.

It was still early, she could tell, and with that and the waves crashing against the shore outside their room, it was easy.  

The Doctor didn't sleep a lot, said he didn’t need to, but somehow, whenever they were trapped or staying together, he slept every night. Part of her wondered if he did it to keep her from feeling uncomfortable.  Or, perhaps, it was just moments like this that he needed to be reminded that she wasn’t leaving him, that she was still alive. She smiled at the thought and burrowed deeper into his chest.  

His heartsbeats were reassuring and she closed her eyes against the sound.  Perhaps she could still get a bit of sleep before they had to get up.  She pressed her nose into his chest and barely stopped herself from pressing a kiss to the center of his chest.  There were things that one just didn’t do, even when a moment so tender could be stolen so easily.

It was hours later when the Doctor and Rose woke. He stretched against her, flexing his hands against her back.  “Good morning,” he said sleepily, his voice rumbling roughly with disuse.

“Good morning,” she said, not looking up at him.

“Are you still thinking about last night?” He asked curiously, skimming his fingers up and down her spine.

“Well, yeah,” Rose said, adjusting herself so they were still close, sharing a pillow, but they were eye to eye.  “Aren’t you?”

“I’m intrigued by it,” he admitted, sleepy dark eyes looking down into hers. He furrowed his brows. “I’m more worried about how you were affected.”

She shook her head against the pillow, breaking eye contact. “I don’t- it was stupid. Just felt this pull.”

“That’s what worries me.  Even with telepaths, people we’ve been against that are capable of brain washing, you’ve always been stronger than them.”   


“Does that mean I’m weaker?” Rose asked dejectedly.

One of the Doctor’s hands moved from her back to catch her on the chin and force her to look at him. Once satisfied she would stay there, he settled the hand back on her waist.  “ _ No,”  _ he said firmly. “That is not what that means.  That means whatever this is, whatever that carnival is made of, is stronger than anything you’ve faced before. Achaz responded to it, too.”

“Not as strongly.”

“He’s also been living next to it for who knows how long,” The Doctor pointed out.  “My point is, that… Rose, I don’t want you to doubt yourself because of this.”

She sighed and nodded, knowing that on some level he was right, and not willing to address it.  “I know that,” she said, “It’s just, you know, our first proper adventure, and I don’t want you to regret taking me with you again-”

“-I could never regret taking you with me again,” he said. “You are the most important person in my life, Rose Tyler.  I would have never turned you away.”

She smiled.  “Thanks for stroking my ego,” she said softly.

“Anytime,” he whispered back.  “Are you hungry?”

She nodded.  “A little, but I can wait.”

“Why wait?”

“It’s comfy here…. S’nice.  You know?”

He kissed her forehead and lay back on the pillow again, closing his eyes.  “Yeah,” he said, “I know.”

She wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back to sleep or if he was just enjoying the moment, so she giggled at him a little.  “Are  _ you  _ hungry?”

He peeked at her with one eye.  “Yeah,” he said.

“Then maybe we should get up and get something to eat,” Rose suggested.

“There is a very lovely chip place on this planet,” The Doctor said, absently stroking her hair. 

She liked when he did this. She like the shows of affection that she hadn’t realized she had missed.  And she hadn’t even  _ really  _ thought about it, until he’d started doing it again.

When she had been in Pete’s World, it had been hard to remember what ‘personal space’ meant.   _ Very  _ difficult.  She’d stood too close to her coworkers to examine something, forgetting she wasn’t next to the Doctor was inspecting an alien egg.

She was out of place there. She had a knowledge of the universe that no one at Torchwood did, and they thought she was odd.  She knew there were whispers about her behind her back, knew they talked bad about her. As a result, she had only tried harder to get back home, and had done her best to make herself the best person she could be.

There was even a pool of money to see how injured she would get on each mission she went on.  They thought she didn’t know.

She never told Pete about it, because it felt too much like a primary schooler telling their dad that there were some bullies on the playground. As a woman in her twenties, she didn’t think she wanted to be seen that way.  She wanted them to think that she was mature and sophisticated because she acted that way.  Or, at the very least, she tried to.  She wanted to be.

But it had felt like she was trying too hard, and when the opportunity to come back to the Doctor had finally risen by way of the Dimension Cannon, she jumped at the opportunity. It was time to go home.

“What are you thinking about?” The Doctor asked, pulling back to look at her.   


She smiled sheepishly up at him, realizing she’d never answered his unspoken question about where they were planning to eat. “Nothing,” she told him.

“You don’t think about nothing, you’re much too clever for that,” the Doctor told her, arching his brow at her.  God, she’d missed even that. The smallest of idiosyncrasies drew her in until she felt like she was drowning in him, and she never wanted to surface again.

“I was thinking about how people didn’t like me, back where…” she trailed off.

“Nonsense, everyone likes you.”

“They thought I was odd.”

“You are.  So am I.  That’s why we fit so well together.”

She giggled, then sobered. “I was really lonely.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, squeezing his eyes shut. “Me, too.”

She hugged him, very awkward while they were still both lying down, but he hummed quite happily and squeezed her to him.  Apparently he wasn’t averse to touches of what she  _ thought  _ must be affection.

They were quiet for a moment.  Rose still thought it was odd, that they weren’t a couple.  Perhaps that was selfish of her, and she shouldn’t think about it, but she was accustomed now, to the feel of his body against hers, of her hand in his.  She wanted to kiss him whenever she felt like it.

“What time is it?” She whispered.

“Twelve.”

“We slept late.”

“Mm.”   


“You’re right, we should get something to eat.”

“I agree.”

“Can we eat on the balcony again?”

“We could go to the place I was talking about,” he pulled back from their hug and sat up on the bed, rubbing his eyes.  “It’s beachside.”

She sat up as well.  “Really?”

“Yep.  Get dressed and we’ll get going.  I want to check the scans on the carousel at the restaurant.”

“We could do it here,” Rose suggested.

“We could,” The Doctor agreed, “But I didn't bring us here so we could be all cooped up in this room all the time, I will have you know. I had plans.”

“You, with a plan?  I thought I would never see the day.”

He chuckled and swung his legs over the bed.  “Get on, then, go.  Faster we’re ready, the sooner we can go.”

Rose hopped out of bed and picked out some clothes after rifling through the things she had brought with her. She decided on a white flowy top and high waisted shorts that the Doctor had bought for her when they went just a bit in the future.  She didn’t know what the style was, now, exactly, but she had a feeling that something like this would be safe.

She changed in the bathroom, and did all the things that a woman does to make themselves ‘presentable’, which was something the Doctor didn’t understand.  After several minutes of not quite primping, she exited the en suite to see the Doctor already dressed in a white button down and his suit trousers.  His feet were still bare and he was looking out the window.

“S’beautiful,” she said, joining him.

“It is,” he agreed, “Sometimes, I think, I focus on the people of each world too much.  Not that there’s anything wrong with people, not at all, actually, but… It’s beautiful, the places, too.”

“That’s how we feel on Earth,” Rose told him.  “People can be cruel, but landscapes exist simply because they’re told to, yeah?  So, here they are, and if they hurt people, it’s not because they’re evil.”

“When did you get so philosophical?” The Doctor teased.

“Dunno,” she shrugged. “Put your shoes on so we can leave, I’m starving.”

The walk to the chip shop that the Doctor had been talking about was not terribly long, as the man always knew where he was going, and they were seated in an outside dining area that faced a boardwalk, and in turn, the ocean.  

She stared out at it, oblivious that he was staring at her.

There were aliens on the boardwalk, some she recognized and some she didn’t, so she asked the Doctor about the species that she didn’t know the names of.  

“I’ve never been to a sit-down chip place,” she remarked.

“No, I suppose not,” The Doctor replied, “You see, there’s all kinds of chips here, made differently, different flavors, so to have it the way you see your chip shops at home would be massively overwhelming for the workers here.”

“Oh,” Rose said, glancing down at the rather vast venue and finding that he was right. “Maybe we should look at the sonic now, yeah?  She what it dragged up?”

He pulled the sonic out of his pocket and set it on the table.  “You’re right,” he said, “Let’s have a look.”

She laughed. “You look while I read the menu. I can’t read that thing.”

“Remind me, I’ll teach you someday,” he said absently, shoving his glasses onto his face and staring down at the sonic. 

It was a few minutes before the Doctor removed his glasses and gave the device a very confused look. He glanced up at Rose, who was watching him.  “Sometimes, when I do a scan with the sonic, it can’t comprehend the information that I give it.  So, as a result, it sends the scan to the TARDIS.  They’re linked, you see, so that way they can work together to solve whatever it is that the sonic can’t solve alone.”

“Why are you telling me this?  What does it say?” Rose demanded, leaning forward a bit.  “You’re rambling.”

“It doesn’t know!” the Doctor cried.  “The sonic and the TARDIS both sent readings that say it’s nothing they can understand because they’ve never seen it before.”

“But the TARDIS has seen everything,” Rose said.

“Almost everything,” The Doctor replied, “Not quite everything.”

“So we have no information.”

“Well… No.  Well, wait, we have… There is a miniscule amount that we can see… Hang on.”  Glasses firmly back on his face, he leaned closer to the sonic.  “It says that it’s not an echo.  Everything is solid, nothing is an apparition.  The origin year is 1940.”

“Okay, well, that’s something,” Rose said, trying to be optimistic.”

“But this planet didn’t exist in 1940,” The Doctor said, frustrated.  “I know there were carnivals then, but not-”

“Doctor, you’re thinking too hard.”

“What?”

She smiled at him.  “It’s clear that this thing isn’t coming here from 1940. Something from another planet that doesn’t want to be traced is  _ sending  _ it here.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Sending?” The Doctor furrowed his brows.

“Yes,” Rose nodded.  “You know… From another planet?  Aliens, maybe?

The Doctor beamed at her.  “You are brilliant, do you know that?”

“I certainly try,’ she said, “But how are we supposed to figure out who sent it?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said, lifting a shoulder.  “I can’t…  Listen, there isn’t a lot of danger I’m willing to put you in.”

Rose leaned over the menu, her elbow on the laminated cover, feeling how sticky the heat made it.  “I’m willing to be in danger,” she said, “I’m willing to finish this, I’m willing to take the risks that we’ve always taken.”

The Doctor pursed his lips.  “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not any more fragile than I used to be,’ she said, “If anything, I’m stronger.”

“I know,” He said, “But that doesn’t make a difference. I want you safe.”  

“And I want you safe, so why would I let you go alone?”

He pursed his lips. “We can talk about this after lunch,” he argued.

“No,  We don’t ever talk about anything, we’re talking now,” she said, eyes snapping. “We always dodge things, not now.”

He stared at her, surprised that she had stood up to his words.  “I- Rose, I know that you think-”

“I’m not who you first met,” she said firmly, cutting him off.  ‘I know you  _ think  _ I am, Doctor, but I’m not.  I don’t run headfirst into danger anymore.  I did when I was in Pete’s World, because I felt like I had to, like there was nothing for me, nothing worth living for.  But Doctor, my very  _ life  _ is worth living for.  So I’ll be more responsible this time, I’ll do my best to do as you say because you understand this stuff better than me but do  _ not  _ shut me out.  I’ll be forced to follow you, and we both know that I’ll be less safe then.”

There were several moments where he said nothing as she held his eye contact and waited.  When it became clear that he was simply going to stare in shock, she sighed and looked back down at the menu.  Well, at least she’d gotten her point across.

“If you died,” he said softly, “It would kill me too.”

“Then let’s protect each other so that doesn’t happen again,” she said, flipping a stiff page.

He smiled then, lighting up his whole face.  “I think you may be onto something,” he said.

“I know I am.  I’m not stupid.”   


“I  _ know  _ you’re not stupid.”

“Then please, Doctor, start acting like it.”

“Alright, you can come with me.”

“I should hope so,” she looked up at him, “I would go whether you wanted me to or not, but I would rather you want me there.”

The Doctor was shocked by her words.  “Of course I want you there!” He cried. “I always want you there, I just worry.”

“Well, you shouldn’t.  I made it all the way across the universe without you protecting me.” She wasn’t sure why she was getting so defensive, but it seemed to be the right thing in the face of his arrogance. He thought that she needed him?  She didn’t.  Of course, she wanted to be with him, but she didn't need him to save her life all the time anymore. If anything, she would rather this new chapter of their lives be sort of co-dependent.  She didn’t want either of them relying on the other for anything, and she had a feeling that that was difficult for him to understand.

“Are you angry with me now?” He asked, his voice small.

“ _ No,  _ I’m not angry with you,” she said, “I just wish you’d have some sort of trust in my abilities.”

“I have trust in your abilities,” he said firmly, “Don’t ever think I don’t.  I just don’t want to lose you again.”

“You won’t.  I promise.  Now, let’s just order something.  Our waiter was probably scared off by all our bickering.”

It was oddly domestic, this.  The fighting across a table at a chip shop while they were on a sort of adventure sort of vacation. She wondered why the Doctor hated domestics when he did it so well.  He was the sort of man a woman would want to have children with, and for all the right reasons, too.

They did finally order, a variety chip platter that they could split. Rose shied away a little from the idea, but the Doctor, as always, told her to keep an open mind.  He told her about all the different colors and textures they would be experiencing in the platter, all while mixing in discussion about the carousel.

“You may have been onto something, Rose, with the winning.  Perhaps we should try that tonight.”

“You don’t think it’s too dangerous?”

“Of course I do, but like you said, I should display my trust in you a bit more often. Because I do, trust you that is,” he said, “So we’ll do what you think is best.’

“But the way it tugged at me, the way I felt compelled to do it… That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing,” she protested, “Doesn’t mean it’s what’s best.”

‘No, but we can try it. I might have a vortex manipulator laying around from when Jack was with us,  If anyone gets sucked off into another dimension, they can come right back. Of course, we won’t have Achaz test that theory, but-”

“You really think that’s right?” She said, “You think playing the games will do something?”

The Doctor shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted, “But all I can do is scan it again, and that’s not going to give me any better readings the second time. It all comes up the same, at some point, and then you have to try something different.”

She smiled. “Okay, then, if you let me have the vortex manipulator, I’ll do it”

“Brilliant. I’ll fetch it from the TARDIS this afternoon.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Nah, why don’t you go on the beach?  You’re always going on about the beach, and it won’t take me long. I’ll be back at your side in a moment, when I go.”

“Alright,” She agreed, a little hesitantly, not sure what he was up to and not even really sure that she wanted to know. Usually he let her go back to the TARDIS with him when he needed to pick something up.  “Alright, but not while we’re eating.  It can wait for a little, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them ate slowly when their food came, as it was loads of things that Rose had never eaten before, and she was almost in awe of it. They were all potatoes, but they varied and tasted different, felt different.  The Doctor told her the difference between each one, that they grew on different parts of the planet.  He told her the different growth statuses, how they were harvested in different growth phases.

“You know a disgusting amount about potatoes,” she told him, “Do you have a casual interest in anything?”

“I have a casual interest in lots of things,” he replied. 

“No, no,” she laughed, “You have an unhealthy obsession with a lot of things.  Casual interest is ‘oh, look, there’s that thing I’m sort of fond of’.”

He wrinkled his nose.  “What’s the point of liking something if you can’t do it enthusiastically?” He wrinkled his nose. “Martha said I was a geek.”

“You are.”

“Ah.  Seems to be a popular opinion then.”

“It is.” 

He grinned at her. “Not too bad, is it?”

“No, it’s not bad.’ He was quiet for several minutes, before leaning across the table, wiping his fingers on a napkin as he did so. “I want to teach you to strengthen your mental barriers, before we go over there tonight.”

“Okay,” She said, “How would you do that?”

“I’d have to go into your mind,” He said hesitantly, remembering how she had so hated the idea when she had first started traveling with him. Maybe she had changed by now, but maybe not.  He cleared his throat and looked away so he wouldn’t have to see her rejection of him written on her face.

“Are you alright with that?” She asked.

“I should be asking you that,” he replied, surprised.

“You’re the one that has a history of telepathy, it might… I dunno, bring up bad memories, of the Time War?”

He shook his head. “No, I should be fine.  I can do it before I fetch the vortex manipulator from the TARDIS, but… I think we should do it in our room.  A more neutral environment, free of distractions.”

“Okay.”

“You’re accepting this very easily.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Should I not be?”

‘Oh, no, it’s absolutely fine, I just thought you’d be against it.”

“I’m not.  If it’ll keep me safe, I’m completely fine with it.”

It was about twenty minutes later, when they sat facing each other on the couch.  The Doctor had his fingers pressed against her temples, but wasn’t actively trying to get into her mind. She could feel a buzz against her temples, knew it was him, and felt oddly safe.

“Are you  _ sure?” _

She frowned at him., “I’m not the one asking every two seconds.  It’s alright, Doctor, really.  Just tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

He breathed out a sigh and nodded, knowing she was right.  He closed his eyes and spoke into her mind, surprised with the bit of resistance she put up before he was allowed in.

_ Good news,  _ he said into her mind,  _ you have a natural barrier already, we just need to strengthen it. _

_ M’kay, so how do I do that? _

_ Push me out. _

_ How? _

_ Just do it, imagine that you want me to leave really badly, like if you don’t push me out I might hurt you. _

_ Uh… _

_ I won’t, I won’t hurt you, Rose, you just have to pretend that I’m going to.  Push me out. _

Her first little push was tentative, as though she was afraid of hurting hima nd not the other way around.  She stopped after just a few moments.

_ I can’t,  _ her mind whispered.

_ Yes you can, I know you can.  Now, try again. _

She tried, and he could feel it, but it wasn’t enough to throw him from where he was.  He sent her a wave of encouragement and she pushed harder.  Not wanting her to hurt herself, he let himself tumble out of her mind.  She opened her eyes and looked at him.

“Like that?” She asked out loud.

“Like that,” he agreed.  “I’ll up my resistance, and it will strengthen yours.  At the end of this afternoon you should be able to shove me out and keep me out for as long as you like.”

Rose seemed very determined as she nodded against his fingers and closed her eyes again. The two of them fought in her mind for about two hours, until the Doctor realized he could feel Rose growing tired. He hadn’t expected that, really, had almost anticipated her to have the same mental strength as a Time Lord, which, of course, could not be the case.  As incredible as she was, she was still human.

When she threw up her barriers one last time,  _ much  _ stronger now than they were when they’d started this, he pulled his fingers from her temples.  “Just do that when you feel something pulling at you,” he said softly.

She nodded sleepily.  “I’m kind of tired now,” she admitted.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard,” he said, pushing slightly sweaty hair behind her ear.  “Stay here, I’m going to go get that manipulator.”

“M’kay,” she mumbled. “Gonna take a nap.”

“Not a bad idea.  I forgot working in your mind would make you so tired, I’m sorry.”

She cupped his cheek, her eyes focusing in on his. “You’re always apologizing.  Stop it.”  She kissed him on the cheek and stood from the couch, leaving him to stand shocked in the room.  He sat still for a few moments, watching her leave, his superior ears hearing her get under the covers and almost immediately fall asleep.

She was brilliant, he knew that already, and now he could try to protect her, or at least, she had a better way to protect herself.  He believed everything would be fine, but the things the Doctor believed didn’t always appear to be true.


	9. Chapter 9

While Rose was sleeping, the Doctor took it as an opportunity to slip from the hotel and go back to the TARDIS for the vortex manipulator.  He didn’t like leaving Rose alone, but he knew it would be beneficial to have Jack’s old device with them.

He went unnoticed, worrying about Rose all the way, and patted the TARDIS doors lovingly before entering.  

“Hello, girl,” he said, “I think I need a vortex manipulator.  Can you help me find it?”

The TARDIS hummed happily and then asked after Rose with a gentle inquiry.  She seemed to think Rose was lost.

“Oh, she’s back at the hotel, having a bit of a nap,” The Doctor said, and added a bit sheepishly, “I was trying to build her mental barriers and I think I pushed her too hard for the first time.”

The TARDIS sent a wave of sympathy.

“You know, sometimes I think you like her then you like me,” the Doctor said, grinning up at the ceiling of his frankly magnificent ship.

After a moment, the TARDIS let out a very cheery hum that was definitely the phrase  _ sometimes I do! _

The Doctor looked around in some of his supply rooms, and the TARDIS guided him to the last place Jack had left it.  The Doctor finally found the thing, letting out a crow of triumph and shoving it into his trouser pocket.  The TARDIS told him before he left, in no uncertain terms, to make sure Rose was doing well today.

“I will,” The Doctor promised.  “I would never do anything to her that would hurt her.”

The TARDIS knew that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Rose on purpose, but there had been many moments that the Doctor had hurt Rose very deeply.  So she sent him a little warning hum that he understood.  It made him blush a little and he shook his head.

“Old girl, I never thought I’d get her back.  I don’t know why you think I would do anything stupid.”

The ship stayed silent and that gave him his answer right there.  He breathed out a little sigh. “Well, we’ll see you when this thing is sorted.  Both of us.”

She hummed happily.

The Doctor chuckled to himself and excused himself from the TARDIS, basically saying goodbye for a little while to his ship.  He headed back to the hotel as quickly as he could, needing to get back to Rose as quickly as possible.  Ideally, he would be back before she woke up.

There were moments, when she had been with him before, that he needed to have space from her.  However, this time, since getting her back, he found that the last thing he wanted was to be away from her.  He hated not being near her, not having her hand in his.  If he wasn’t with her, he felt empty inside.  

It wasn’t something Time Lords were supposed to feel, this aching to be close to her. He loved to see her in the morning to have tea with her, looked forward to seeing her bright smaller.  

Every bit of him was addicted to her, and it was something that made him wonder exactly what he could do about it. He couldn’t  _ tell  _ her, of course, because even though he had a feeling she felt the same way as he did, it would make it that much harder when he inevitably lost her again.  

She couldn’t stay, she would die, and that killed him.

When he entered the hotel room again, he heard her call sleepily from the bedroom, “Doctor, is that you? “Yeah,” he said, entering the room.  She looked up at him blearily.  

“Good timing,” she said softly, flopping down against the pillows.

He chuckled and threw the vortex manipulator on her stomach.  She made a little ‘oof’ sound and picked it up to inspect it.

“You found it!” She said cheerfully, suddenly completely alert.  “I wasn’t sure you were going to be able to.”

“Oi, Jack didn’t hide his things that well,” he said, crossing his arms and rocking back on his heels. “You have no faith in me.”

“I have plenty of faith in you,” she said, inspecting the device, “Just wasn’t sure where Jack keeped this stuff.  Or maybe he took it back when you saw him last.  I wasn’t sure, really.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” he sat on the bed next to her, and held his hand out for the device.  She put it in his hands and shifted to sit up straighter.

He wiggled his fingers at her.  “I have to check your mind, make sure everything is nice and stable,” he said.

She giggled and scooted towards him.  “Okay,” she said, closing her eyes and waiting expectantly.  

He smiled at her, and touched her temples, tapping on her mind so that she could let him in. She did, her response less sluggish but still slow moving, and found her barriers just as strong as they were when she had gone to sleep.  She still seemed a little groggy, and he felt guilty for making her get up, and felt guilty for pushing into her mind.

“Do you want to go sleep for awhile before we go see Achaz?” the Doctor asked softly.

Rose nodded.  “Sorry, dunno why I’m so tired,” she murmured, pressing her hand to her forehead.

“It’s my fault,” the Doctor said, “I pushed you too hard, your mind isn’t used to having anything inside your head, except for Bad Wolf, and-”

She squeezed his bicep, cutting him off.  “It’s okay,” She said.  “We’ll have a bit to eat though and I’ll sleep until we have to leave the room. Okay?”

“Okay,” He said, still worrying in the back of his mind.  

“What’s that face for?” She asked, scrunching up her nose at him.

He raised his brows at her. “What face?”

She mimicked the ‘face’ that he seemed to be making.  “You’re making your worried, ‘I’m sorry’ face, and there’s no need for that.  Really none at all.”

He stroked her hair back from her face and tried to loosen his face muscles so he wasn’t making a face any more.  “I don’t… Listen,” he leaned towards her. “I could have hurt your mind, and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

“Well, you didn’t hurt me,” she said, frowning at him.  “I’ll be fine, I just need to get a little extra rest, like I told you.  What, you think I’ll die in my sleep or something?”

“Well,  _ no,”  _ The Doctor said, “Never mind, go to sleep.”

“Blimey, you’re jumpy.”

“I am not!”

“Yeah, you are,” she giggled, “Since I got back you’ve been all worried about everything.  Makes me nervous.”

“ _ I  _ make  _ you  _ nervous?” He scoffed disbelievingly, “Out of all the time we’ve known each other, I never thought I was the one to make you nervous.”

“Is this that jeopardy friendly thing again?” She asked him, adjusting her pillows and not looking at him.  “Because I rather thought we were past that, or at least, that you believed in me more.”

He frowned at her this time.  It was clear that there had been a misunderstanding along the way.  “I believe in you, Rose Tyler,” he said with conviction, and she lifted her eyes back to him.  “I believe in your ability to face aliens and the unknown, but what scares me is that I can’t protect you from all that.”

She smiled. “That’s very sweet of you, Doctor.  But if there’s anything we’ve established, it’s that I don’t need protecting.” She lay back down, on her side, still facing him. “Maybe it’s time you learned to let someone protect you.”

He rolled his eyes.  Imagine.  Him!  A 900 year old Time Lord needing protection.  He knew she had saved him from so much already, but admitting that to himself was something he wasn’t sure that he was quite ready to do.  He scratched his forehead and laid down on his back next to her, trying to sort out what to say to her next.

“If I do, you’ll be the first one I call,” he settled on finally, not even chancing a glance over at her for fear that his face would betray the real meaning behind the words he spoke so flippantly.  He had a feeling she might know anyway. She was so dead clever, he never could get anything past her.

“Hm,” she said, closing her eyes. “I hope you do, seeing as I plan to be with you anyway.”

Before he had time to think about that, she was asleep, which gave him even more time to think up more unpleasant scenarios.  Tonight was definitely going to test his limits. How, he wasn’t quite sure, but he knew it was coming in more ways than one and that terrified him.

He had been preparing Rose. Something was clearly attacking her mind the other night at the carousel and he wasn’t sure how to handle it besides strengthening her mental barriers. She would be safe on that level, if nothing else.

The Vortex Manipulator, on the other hand, would keep her safe physically, keep her right in the realm that she was supposed to be in, right there with him.  Achaz didn’t seem to be as pulled to the carousel as Rose was, so the Doctor wasn’t necessarily worried about him.  He had been living around it long enough to resist it, but Rose’s new exposure sparked a curiosity that couldn’t be tamed until she satisfied it.  That was how she was naturally, and it usually led to a bit of trouble, but since getting her back, he had the urge to be very, very careful with her.

He had expected the trip to be something of a lark, a tiny mystery to solve while they were trying to settle back into the old groove of Shiver and Shake, and for him to get a little used to not keeping her by his side all the time.

Unfortunately, he was going to have to let her wander farther off the beaten path than he would like, with this new adventure.  He kicked himself for not checking it out further, for throwing them into danger like he always did. That was what made him lose her in the first place, what had destroyed her for him almost entirely.

She didn’t seem afraid though.  The other night, she had been more disappointed that she had let him down than worried that something horrible might happen to her.  Of course, she knew about her well being, and thought about it often since she was human, and her mortality, of course, would sneak up on her.  But it never hindered her.  Not like it hindered him that he would some day lose her.

The thought made him want to curl up around her and never, ever let her go, to hold her tight until neither of them could breathe.  

He sniffed to himself and got up off the bed.  Sitting there would do no good, not when he was thinking such destructive thoughts anyway. What he needed to do was get things ready for tonight, perhaps order some food up for Rose when she woke.  

She was  _ tired,  _ he kicked himself inwardly, noticing her hand curled under her jaw as it had been that morning.  She looked so gentle, it was hard to believe that she was as fiery and strong as she really was.  She could destroy armies, vanquish Daleks and burn Cybermen to the ground and he would always be standing behind her, in awe of her.

It had never been this way, that a woman had so much power over him, much less a human woman.  She was special.  She was the only one.  And he had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

So, the Doctor did what he always does when things get a little too hard and complicated: he ran.  After ordering up some food for Rose to be delivered, he bolted out of the door to get some fresh air walking on the beach.  Being too close to her was intoxicating.  The beach didn’t help, because he only worried about how she was up in the room, since he wasn’t sure who they could trust here.

Within twenty minutes of leaving, he was back in the room, but situated himself on the balcony.  Close enough to Rose to look, but not touch.

And that was always how it was going to be, he decided.  If he had to lose her one day, it would be easier if she was within looking distance.  But he couldn’t have her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse for this story finally got its drama in order, so here's this chapter! Sorry for the delay, I'm posting a bit earlier in the day in the hopes that you all will forgive me.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Rose noticed that the Doctor was a little spaced out, but chose to ignore it in favor of simply eating her dinner and watching him.  She also noticed he wasn’t eating, and she frowned at him and kicked his knee.

“Doctor, you have to eat something.”

He nodded, not really to anyone in particular, and reached for a fork.  “What time is it?”

“You always know the time,” she said cautiously.

He blinked and finally focused in on her.  After a moment of silence, he nodded again, this time with a bit more purpose. “Yeah, I do.  Sorry.  Just… Out of it for a moment there.”

“I noticed,” she smiled softly at him, “You alright?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, waving her off.  “I’m worried about you,” he admitted. “For tonight.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, “I think it’ll be alright.  You know, we’ll have Jack’s Vortex manipulator, and we have a plan, which is more than we usually have,” she smiled.  “I wish you’d just trust me.”

“Of course I trust you,” he said, a little shocked that she would assume he didn’t.

Her smile was sympathetic this time, and she settled against the back of her chair. “Mm hm.”

“What? I do!”

“Alright,” She said, taking a bite of her meal. She wanted to get away from this topic now, to escape it.  “Tell me what this is?”

He shifted in his seat and pointed at the rice like substance, but something that was much stickier.  “This is Gentle Rice.”

“What?”

“Gentle Rice.  Means it’s easy on your intestines.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she laughed, and pointed at the meat.  “And that?”

“It’s meat.”

“What kind of meat?”

He smiled sheepishly at her.  “You don’t want to know.”

That night, they got to Achaz’s in what the Doctor wanted to call record time, as being alone with Rose made him very, very nervous since he’d had time to reflect since she’d been back. That didn’t stop him from holding her hand, though, and making sure that she didn’t let go of him.  

She didn’t, of course, but Rose Tyler was anything but stupid. She could feel that the Doctor was being weird, but chose, on some level, to ignore it.  He was always weird, always got weird at some point, and she didn’t want him to know that she knew he was being weird.  It would only hurt his pride.  

She fiddled with the Vortex manipulator and chanced a glance or two at him when Achaz came out to meet them.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said in a rushed voice, “I think we should do like Rose said, and play the games.”

“I agree,” The Doctor said, and gestured to the manipulator.  “This little tool will keep Rose safe.  You and I, Achaz, are going to hang back a little bit when it comes to that.  We’ll help her play them, but she has to be the one to win.”

“Got it,” Achaz nodded eagerly.  “I can do that.”

It got dark and the moment midnight hit, the carousel warped back into view.  Rose felt her breath catch at it, even though she had seen it already, if felt different now.  She had seen it before, and now she had to interact with it.  She swallowed hard and fumbled for the Doctor’s hand.  Despite his nervousness, he let her hold onto him, and gave her a little squeeze of reassurance.  

Rose approached the carnival slowly, her arm outstretched before her.  It seemed to be drawing her in, as it had before.  She was addicted to it, or seemed to be. The Doctor held her hand a little tighter, wondering if he could possibly hold her back, but she seemed to be stronger than him, at least for a moment.  

He followed her, with Achaz close behind, and the both of them headed towards the lights.  Rose’s eyes were large and unblinking, the lights reflecting wildly on them.  The Doctor, quite suddenly, was afraid Rose wouldn’t respond to any vocal cue, and tapped the vortex manipulator on her wrist.  “Remember you have this, Rose.”

She nodded distantly, but was clearly not aware, perhaps not even awake.  She glanced at him and forced a reassuring smile that the Doctor did not find reassuring at all.  After a moment, she approached a balloon dart game, her eyes still vacant.  She let go of the Doctor’s hand, which did not make him feel any better about the whole ordeal.

Achaz lingered a little bit behind the Doctor, looking afraid.  He stepped up with Rose, and the Doctor stayed back, ready to grab the both of them and pull them back if he needed to.  Rose reached for one of the darts with a bunch of feathers attached to the end and ran it against her fingers.  She looked gracefully mechanical, her hands running over the little piece before throwing it.  It popped the first balloon she hit with an echoing, unnatural sound, and she nodded to Achaz, indicating that he should have a turn.

“Rose, can you hear me?” The Doctor touched her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she replied, “I can hear you just fine.”

Her voice was solid, so if nothing else, at least she was present.  Or at least, as present as she could be in her current circumstance.  The Doctor had to refrain from tugging her up against him and making sure she never left him again.  He clenched his hands at his sides to keep himself from doing just that.

Achaz threw a dart, and he too popped one. Rose wondered if perhaps there was a possibility that the game was rigged so that they would win instead of lose.  She furrowed her brows at the thought and stared at the board before her.  It didn’t look that weird, but then again, it had been a long time since Rose had been to a carnival, and an even longer time since she had played carnival games.  Her mum always said they were fixed so the house always wins, and a complete waste of money.  She had always agreed, and she still did, but this was free, all the pretty feathered darts laid out before her like they were being presented.

Maybe they were.

She selected darts with her favorite colors on them first.  All the red and gold ones, the bright happy colors.  She glanced at the Doctor and back at the darts, and found that she was dreadfully drawn to the blue and brown ones as well.

Every single time she threw a dart, she hit her target. There was a bit of celebration from her, as she turned over her shoulder and grinned broadly at the Doctor. Though she could see the concern that washed over his face, he smiled back at her like he always did.  He always would, really.  Anything to keep her happy.

The last dart was purple, and the last balloon was yellow.  Rose pointed at Achaz.  “Go ahead.”

“No, you have to win,” Achaz said, “Isn’t that what you said. It wants us to win.”

“Yes,” Rose replied slowly, “But that doesn’t mean-”

“It’s communicating with you,” the Doctor cut her off.  “That means that you’re supposed to be the one to win.”  He shrugged. “I’m fairly certain, anyway.”

Rose nodded.  She trusted the Doctor with her life, and if this was what he thought it meant, she would believe him easily.  She turned to the dart and delicately picked it up between her thumb and forefinger.  She had to get this right, no second chances.  

Staring at the dart, she tried to picture herself winning, pictured the Doctor and Achaz celebrating the win with her.  She threw the dart and pierced the balloon, but this one made no sound.  Feeling lightheaded, she backed up into the Doctor. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up, breath ghosting her ear.

“Alright?” He asked her.

“Yeah,” she replied, forcing a nod.

“Look,” Achaz pointed down to the counter of the game.  “A ticket.’

“A ticket,” she said, and stepped forward to pick it up gently, like it would reach out and grab her if she wasn’t careful.  It said  _ “Plus one thousand points”  _ on it, printed in looping gold script, bordered in red.

“One thousand is a lot for just one ticket,” Rose remarked, furrowing her brows at the little piece of paper. “Or at least, it is where I’m from.”  She reminded herself, glancing up at Achaz and the Doctor for reassurance.   She pocketed the thing, making sure it was secure, before pulling the Doctor along to the next game.

Usually at a carnival, there were other people playing, others getting excited over winning a game or food or a ride or… Something.  It was eerie to be the only people there, the only things in the area that could show any emotion.  There was no cheering of crowds, no excited children trampling through the fairgrounds.  The Doctor scooted a bit closer to Rose, seeking comfort he wasn’t sure she could give.  He thought this might be what Gallifrey would be like, if it hadn’t collapsed, if he could see it now.  Empty.  Quiet.  He glanced around and sneered at the decorations.   _ Fake. _

The music was the only sound that surrounded them, drifting in and out of the rides and in between them.  Rose had the distinct feeling that the carnival was crying for help on some level, and her eagerness to fix it made her faster at the games.  She played several until she won, as some weren’t as eager as the balloon toss to let her win.  She  _ had to win.   _ Her fingers started to burn from the fake plastic material that was used on some of the games, and the sharp, poorly sanded wood of others.  She didn’t remember carnivals being this brutal.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Achaz asked the Doctor.  “She’s going a little wild.”

“Rose can take care of herself,” The Doctor said slowly, though she wasn’t quite sure that she could anymore.  Rose’s expression was even more distant than it had been before, and he hadn’t seen her face like that since the Bad Wolf had taken over her body.  He laid a hand on her shoulder, immediately afraid of what would happen to her if she continued on.

“Rose?” He said softly, “Maybe we should finish this tomorrow.”

“It needs help,” she replied, her eyes flashing dangerously.  The Doctor didn’t fear much, but he was afraid, for a moment, and he didn't want to be afraid of Rose Tyler.

“You can help it tomorrow,” the Doctor said slowly.

“No,” She shook him off.  “It needs me.”

He took her by both shoulders and forced her to face him.  “Look at me.  Rose.  Look at me.”

“Get off me,” She fought him, pushing him off of her and darting to the final booth game. The Doctor glanced behind them.  Had they really gone through so many?  This last one was a simple toss, to knock down stacks of cups.  

He noticed, then, that more people were approaching the carnival, rubbing their eyes and chattering with one another.  He waved his hands. “Go back!” He shouted, “No trouble here, no, none at all!  You’ve got to get back!”

The people stopped, but stared at him in a puzzled, half asleep manner.  The Doctor looked between Rose and the people, feeling that he needed to be close to her but also to keep the other people back from her and the rest of the carnival.  

Achaz looked steadily to the Doctor. “I’ll keep them back,” he promised after seeing the Doctor’s internal struggle, and jogged from the carnival to talk to the people there.  The Doctor turned back to Rose and suddenly it seemed like everything was happening in slow motion.

She pressed her open palms at the cups, like she was casting a spell, and the plastic things shattered, the whole booth imploding in on itself.  Rose cried out but didn’t fall, bending her head against the power of the shove.  Her feet were planted, knees bent, and the Doctor moved to catch her, to keep her from falling.  

It seemed that he was too late.

Without warning, everything started to explode into light around them.  The gold and red and orange of the carnival flashed before him until he could no longer make out the pink and yellow of Rose.  He got a flash of her eyes, pure golden, and fell back as the carnival winked out of existence, taking Rose with it.


	11. Chapter 11

Silence fell over the beach.  

As the moments passed, the people who had been on the beach filtered away, murmuring to each other, as though it had all been a dream.  It was quiet, all of a sudden, in a way that should have felt natural, but never would.

She was gone.  Sucked from him with a blink and a click.  He couldn’t stop the thoughts that he had lost her again, that he had failed her yet again.  She had trusted him, and he had known how the carnival affected her, and he had done all of it anyway. He had decided how he was going to do things, and he did them without asking.

He could never make her happy now.  Not that he ever could to begin with, he snarked at himself.

He always had to play Time Lord Victorious, always had to act like he was better, never mind that he  _ knew  _ Rose was better than him, that she deserved the universe laid before her, and he deserved nothing of what he got.  This was not remotely fair, and he wanted to scream that to the universe.  

But since when did the universe ever listen to him?

Achaz turned to look at the Doctor, seeing him standing hunched over the spot where Rose had been, her footprints still in the sand, his hands outstretched.  He approached the other man slowly. 

“Detective Smith?” Achaz said quietly.

“Yes?”  The Doctor noted that Achaz was all of a sudden addressing him as Detective again.  He faintly tried to recall why that would matter at all.

“Are you alright?”

“Give me a moment,” he retracted his hands and rubbed his hands over his face.  “She’s my companion, Achaz, that woman is dreadfully important to me.”  He thought, in a far away sort of way, that she should have used the manipulator by now to get her back to him.  He clenched his hands at his sides.  That meant that something must have gone wrong.  She should be  _ back. _

Achaz stood awkwardly, fidgeting with his hands.  “I- I’m sorry, I guess this is my fault, and I never meant for it to be.  I should have never called you here.”

“If not us, then who?” he asked, turning to look at Achaz. “I’m not sorry you brought us.  We’re probably the only people that can help you, not to be, well,” he adjusted his tie, “It’s true, we are the best.  And I believe… I  _ choose  _ to believe that Rose Tyler will come back to me, er, us, rather.  I will be back tomorrow night, same time, and then we’ll figure this out.”

Achaz, being a young man from the era he was from, was very attuned to emotions, and could sense the Doctor’s great distress when it came to Rose.  It wasn’t quite what a colleague would feel for another colleague, and he could see the way Rose looked at him.  And any man, no matter how oblivious, would never understand, but always notice.

He wanted quite badly to sort this all out, since he felt responsible, so he did what he could: the next best thing, as it were.He clapped the Doctor on the shoulder and smiled brightly.  “Come in and have a cup of tea?”  

“Yeah,” the Doctor replied, feeling choked.  “Okay.”

But he didn’t move.

So Achaz waited with the man on the beach, watching him stare into the sand. The wind blew, erasing Rose’s footprints from the sand, brushing it all over, the way it was supposed to be.  

The Doctor wanted to shout at the sand, tell it to fix itself, put itself back in Rose’s form.  He pulled out his sonic and ran it on the sand, watching as the sonic told him that it didn’t know why his companion has been shoved off the earth, stolen away from him.  

“She’s gone,” he whispered, “She’s really gone.”

“Doesn’t she have that… That thingy?” Achaz asked, “Something to bring her back?”

The Doctor nodded.  “She didn’t use it,” he said, “I should’ve known,” He shoved his sonic back and ran his hands through his hair.  “This isn’t fair!” He shouted.  “I knew something was wrong with her, this carnival, it drew her like nothing I’ve ever seen, and now I’ve  _ lost her again!” _

Achaz pursed his lips and took the Doctor’s bicep, “Come with me, we’ll have some tea and talk it out, figure out what to do, alright?  Maybe she’ll come back with the carnival.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor felt spaced out, like nothing was right.  He was disoriented without Rose, as he had been the first time he’d lost her.  No, he refused to say that she was lost. He couldn’t lose her.  There would be nothing left for him if she was lost.  

He sat down at Achaz’s kitchen table as the worried man shuffled around, setting up tea.  

“I don’t mean to intrude,’ The Doctor said, feeling like perhaps he was being rude, but not sure how else to fix it.  He couldn’t just  _ leave,  _ he felt like Rose might come bounding in the house if he left.

“You’re not intruding,” Achaz said, reiterating, “I’m the reason you had to come at all.  And it’s not even fixed, it’s just worse.”

“I know,” the Doctor said hoarsely, and shook his head.  “I don’t-”

“You love her,” Achaz said simply, realizing it for the first time.”

“I-” The Doctor cut himself off.  “The relationship I have with Rose is very complicated.”   


“Does she not love you back?”

“No, she definitely… She definitely feels… That.”

“Why can’t you say it?” Achaz asked, setting down the tea that the Doctor hadn’t even realized was ready.  He stared down into the murky cup and sniffed.  “If she loves you, and you love her, have you ever thought that maybe not acknowledging that love is what makes you be… Separated.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve lost her,” the Doctor allowed, blinking and reaching for the cup.

“Maybe if you let yourself love her, you wouldn’t lose her.”

The Doctor smiled at the man, whose brows were furrowed in worry.  “I didn’t know you were quite this clever, Achaz.”

He smiled timidly at the Doctor.  “It’s been known to shock people,” he admitted.  

They drank their tea in silence, the man of so many words silenced in the wake of losing the only woman that had ever really mattered to him.  She was everything, and he had failed her for the thousandth time.  He was tired of failing her.  Perhaps his restraint was failing her as well, and if he didn’t let himself love her, she would leave him for someone that would.  And that would be even worse.

He felt completely lost.  The both of them understood that silence was the best thing, as the Doctor needed to think.

And he had a lot to think about, since he wouldn’t have Rose to snuggle up with tonight.  Her presence grounded him, since she’d been back.  He needed to be close to her, craved it on a base level.  She was everything valuable in the universe wrapped into one perfect human, one perfect woman who was needed to make the Earth turn.

He stood and gestured to his empty cup. “Thank you for the tea, Achaz,’ he said softly, “I’ll be back tomorrow night,” he promised.   


‘You don’t have to,” Achaz said.

“I have to find Rose.”

After thanking the man once more, the Doctor left, his hands in his pockets, all the way back the hotel.  His hands felt empty, so he curled his fingers inside his pockets, his knuckles scratching the inside of his pockets.  

It would be a long night.  The longest night he’d had in a very long time.

**************   


Rose woke up laying on a table, covered in a red and orange gauzy dress, the neck low and her feet barely peeking out from the bottom of it.  Bare feet, she noted.  She didn’t feel completely safe, and she knew that.

She tried to sit up but cried out in pain. Something was gripping her head, keeping it still, and she felt an ache shoot through her.  She had been here a while, she knew that, though she couldn’t tell how long she’d been there.

Her mind felt fuzzy, and she tried to drag up memories, but could only bring up that she had arrived with someone, though she couldn’t remember who it was, and there was a beach.  

Her body felt warm when she thought of the beach, and a smile crawled across across her face.  What a lovely thought.  The beach!  Who had she come with?  A man, she was sure, and she held his hand in the memories, and she liked the idea of touching him. 

It must be nice, she marveled, to do what you wanted, to move when you wanted to move.  She couldn’t remember a moment when she had done so.  Her body was weighted and she wondered if she could move if she stayed still enough for her captors to let her go.

At least, she thought she must be captured.  No way her body would feel this heavy and drugged if she hadn’t been.  Not that she knew if she was always this tired and weighted.  She could barely draw up any of her past.  

She furrowed her brows.  She knew she had a past.  She knew the man in her memories, though she was not sure how she knew him.  He had dark hair and eyes and that was all she knew.

_ Doctor.  No… Well, yes, but not Doctor...  Theta. _

“Hm,” she hummed to herself, letting her eyes fall closed.  HIs name, too, spread the warmth of the beach through her body.  She must know him very well, as she had a feeling that his name was very close to him, that it meant something.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure how she knew it so clearly.

“She is awake!” A voice sounded, and her eyes snapped open again, every nerve on her instantly on high alert.  Who was that?  And what did they want from her?  She tensed immediately.  

“Rose, can you please tell us about yourself?” The voice said kindly.   


“I’m Rose.”

“Yes, dear, we’ve got that.  What else?”

“I’m… human,” she had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to talk to these people.  “Who are you?”

“The Carnival Runners, of course!” The voice said in a cheery sort of way.  “And who are you?”

“I- I don’t know.”

“Would you like to help us?”

Yes… She was good at helping.  Rose had the feeling that she was the kind of woman that could save the world, if she so desired.  She was a powerful woman.  Yes.  She liked that.  

“Yeah, I’d like to help.”

“Very good!” the voice said, “I’m glad to hear that.”

She furrowed her brows.  Wouldn’t her friend want to save the world with her, too?  He wasn’t next to her.  “Theta,” she croaked out, “Where is he?” “Oh, she hasn’t had enough.  Drug her up again.”

“Theta,” She said again, but it was too late.  She must have something attached to her body, an IV or something, as her limbs grew heavy and her eyelids fluttered shut.

She felt her memories of Theta get ripped away from her, and she furrowed her brows against it.  They were taking him from her!  The Doctor, she knew she called him that, no matter what his name was, but now he was being taken away from her.  

In her mind, she was clawing at him, trying to get him closer while simultaneously trying to hurt him.  Her body was completely still, however, against the odds.  She whimpered in pain as her body fought against her.  

“Help,” she whispered.

“Oh, don’t worry, dear,” the Carnival Runner said, “Everything will be alright soon.”

Rose wished she could believe him, but she didn’t, but she couldn’t fight it either, as sleep closed over her in a suffocating fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've heard from a million fanfics and headcannons that the Doctor's name is Theta, and I like it, so that's my explanation for this :)


	12. Chapter 12

It was quiet in her mind.  That was all she knew.  It was quiet, like she was a machine on the inside.  Was she even still human?  She opened her eyes and stared down at herself, noting that she was still wearing the gauzy dress and her skin was still the same.  No machinery here, she thought to herself, though she wasn’t sure what exactly that meant.

She wiggled her toes, pleased that she still had movement in them.  It kept her awake, and she couldn’t fall asleep again.  Hopefully, they wouldn’t drug her out again.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember what she had been thinking about before she had gone under.  She couldn’t focus on anything, really.  

“Rose?”   


The Game Runner.  She glanced up to see a man with dark greasy hair parted in the middle, wearing a wildly colored suit.  “You’re awake,” he said, smiling.  “Are you ready to help us?” 

She nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to help with.  She sat up, aware that she wasn’t being restricted.  

“What happened to me?” The Game Runner tapped the side of his nose. “We all answer to a higher power.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rose asked.

“I run the games, but the carnival runs me,” the Game Runner said.  “Now, sit up, we’re headed to the beach.”

Rose got a twinge of familiarity when the beach was mentioned and she furrowed her brows as she sat up.  She felt something singing in the back of her head, but it was frantic, as though it was trying to wake her up, or alert her to something.  She tried to push it out, not understanding what it was doing in her mind.

It fought back, and she felt a pulse of something that felt like pure gold pump through her.  She brought her hands up to rub her arms, feeling suddenly cold.

“Are you alright, Rose?” The Game Runner asked.

She nodded, forcing a smile.  “It’s cold,” she said, deciding not to say anything about the singing in the back of her mind.  It was calming in a way, even though whoever or whatever was singing seemed to be shouting at her.  She wondered what had happened, what was wrong, but she ignored it. There was nothing to remember, not that she could even remember it if there was.

“Would you like to see the carnival?”  The Game Runner asked suddenly, holding his hand out for her.

She let him help her up, though she felt a little uncomfortable with the whole thing.  That feeling was pushed away by something that was certainly not her own mind, and she frowned.  Her legs felt like they were wobbling, and she leaned on the Game Runner a bit more than her pride would want to admit.  

It was dark, wherever they were headed, and her vision was easily disoriented as she moved forward.  She squinted as they left the room that she had been held in and entered a pitch black hallway.  As they walked along, what looked to be holographic lights lit up on the ceiling.  Rose felt like this was something decidedly alien, though she wasn’t sure where she was.

He led her to a portal type thing, a white circular panel on the floor with an illuminated blue ring around it.  He stepped into it and Rose followed, her bare feet freezing against the floor.  She touched her wrist as she looked down at the floor.  Wasn’t she supposed to have something?  She was certain she had been wearing a bracelet or something.

The next time she looked up, they were in a busy daytime carnival, people milling about, playing games and laughing, and she found herself smiling.  

This was clearly a fairground, empty, flat land for this specific purpose.  The people walking around looked like they had been wearing old clothes, or at least very old fashioned ones.  She had a feeling that she’d seen them in books, but not really in person.  She furrowed her brows.  Where would she have seen it?

“I’ve been here before,’ she remarked, glancing around at people with their children, balloons floating in the air when let go by sticky fingers.  It was familiar in a way that made her feel odd, like it was in a place it shouldn’t be.  The lights seemed dim in the daylight, but the carousel had the same drag and pull that it always did.  “Where are we?” she asked.   


“Earth nostalgia,” The Game Runner replied, as though that answer was enough for the whole thing.  “Something has happened, and we have to transport it every night to someplace safe.  Would you like to help?”

There was a glint in the man’s eyes, and it was something that scared her, but she felt as though she had to say yes.  For Rose, sensing that she knew the place was enough, really.  Or at least, that was what the little voice in her head said.  It was good.  Yes, the voice told her, even as the singing in the back of her head demand she decline,  _ say no, say no.  _ Her mind was barely occupied by her own consciousness, with two alternate beings in her head.  She was sure that the voice wasn’t her.  It felt calculated, and nothing about it was right.  

Despite everything she thought about, her mind rushing on, she nodded slowly, “Yes,’ she said, “I would like to help.”  That did  _ not  _ feel like her voice.

“Good!  Great, even.  Come with me, step back a little, yes, like that.  Keep your arms in the teleporter, please.”

This time, since she wasn’t looking down, she saw the world flash and twirl before her, burning to look into the dark beach.  The carnival materialized around them, and and she hummed happily.  Yes, this was very familiar, somehow, and she wanted to fix it.

She was standing on the carousel, and it made her feel oddly complete.  She felt her chest pound and turned towards the center of it, little mirrors all around the thing.  It showed her that part of her chest, right next to her heart, was glowing bright blue through her skin.  She gasped and reached up to touch it, feeling her stomach sink.  That was  _ not  _ normal.  She stepped closer to the center and noted that she was starting to turn on the carousel. 

She reached for one of the horses, grabbing the saddle and moving forward with the momentum.  She looked back to the center and saw the same blue light coming through all of it, piercing the darkness around her.  She cried out in fear, her knuckles turning white against the material of the fake horse.  

_ Stop.   _ She willed it.

_ Stop.  Stop.  STOP!” _

“ROSE!”

**************

The Doctor had been waiting outside Achaz’s house again, staring at the place where the carnival had been.  Achaz had sat next to him, watching and trying to make sure the Doctor didn't do anything stupid, like throw himself into the ocean.  

He honestly hadn’t exactly expected the carnival to turn up.  After all, why would it come back?  They’d beat it, Rose was gone, and no scan he ran on the area he ran around it came up with anything telling him where it had come from.  

There were no leads.  Until, well, there were.  

The carnival started to whir into existence, and the Doctor and Achaz shot to their feet, looking at each other with wide eyes.  It was here, yes, but was Rose-

The Doctor’s eyes skimmed the carnival and he saw a man in a traditional carnival outfit, his hair parted in the middle.  There had never been a person in the carnival, the Doctor had been sure of it, so with furrowed brows, he continued looking.  He didn’t want to address the man before he saw Rose.  

After he kept skimming, he saw the carousel spinning, and on it, was a girl hanging onto one of the horses, blue light spilling from her chest.  Her hair blew back from her face, and so he immediately knew who it was, and knew that he needed to get to her.

“ROSE!”

*************

His voice triggered something very odd in her and her head snapped up.  “Theta!” She growled.

_ “He loves you,”  _ the voice in her head whispered,  _ “Pretend you love him too.” _

She nodded to whoever commanded the inside of her head, and with the will of her mind, the carousel stopped.  She stepped off, miraculously not feeling dizzy at all.  The night wind whipped her dress around her legs and she approached the man who was running to her.  

She let him pull her into his arms as he murmured her name into her hair as he held her close, desperately trying to make sure that she was really here, that this wasn’t some sort of illusion.  She lifted her arms around his waist, hugging him back but with none of the passion and energy behind it that he had.  

“New, ah, you’ve got new clothes.  Where did you go, Rose?” He asked, and lifted her hand, after pulling back from the crushing embrace.  “Where’s the vortex manipulator?"   


Her mind sparked. ‘I don’t know-”  _ what that is,  _ she almost finished, but somehow decided not to.  She swallowed hard and turned to the Game Runner, who was approaching them.

“Who is this?” The Doctor demanded, tugging Rose to his side.  She curled her hands into fists at her sides, not wanting him to touch her.  She listened to the voice in her head that told her exactly what she was supposed to do.  And at the moment, she had to let him hold her.  

“This is the Game Runner,” Rose said stiffly, “He runs the carnival.  I have to help it.”

“What’s wrong with it?” The Doctor furrowed his brows at Rose.  Her voice was odd, and he was brutally reminded of Cassandra possessing Rose’s body.  He tightened his hold on her shoulder and stared back at the Game Runner, who was smiling in a very friendly manner, as though he had no idea there was anything odd happening.  

“The carnival is locked,” he said, “The place it resides is unsafe, and it will be destroyed if it does not move.”

“Explain,” The Doctor demanded.  “I need to know exactly what’s happening so I can help.”

“They don’t need you,” Rose said suddenly, lifting her chin.  “They need  _ me.” _

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her.  “Rose, I’m sure they do.  But I need to know what’s going on just as much as you do.”

“As he should,” the Game Runner said, holding up a hand to calm Rose.  “There are problems, every night.  Every night people come to destroy the carnival.  It is illegal to have it.  So we must protect it.”

“It it’s illegal-” the Doctor started.

“You think people shouldn’t have  _ fun, _ ” the Game Runner sneered at the Doctor. “Is that what you think?"   


“I think fun is fine, but the fact of the matter is you’re saving the illegal carnival and leaving the people there, right?”

“Yes.”

“So every night, people might be dying at the hands of the people who are coming to destroy the  _ illegal carnival _ ,” The Doctor said.

“Possibly.  Who cares?  The people who are alive to see it tomorrow will rejoice!”

“And then die the next night!” The Doctor shouted.  “You really think this is acceptable?”

Achaz, who had been standing back, felt a wave of justice run through him.  “We can’t let him get away with this,’ he said to the Doctor.

“I know,” The Doctor replied, thinking that Achaz might not be as useless as he thought.  He curled his hand around Rose’s waist and she fought against him, pushing him off.

“I’m helping,” she said.

“What did you do to her?” The Doctor demanded.  He didn’t reach out for Rose again.  He would always respect her right to not be touched, even if all he wanted to do was hold her until the world came crashing in around them.  

“Rose, we’re leaving,” The Game Runner said simply, voice suddenly cold.

“Okay.”

She stepped back and the Doctor furrowed his brows at her.  “Rose, come here,” he said softly, “This guy is messing with your head.”

“Don’t you see?” Rose raised her chin.  “I won the games.  I save the carnival.  You don’t  _ get  _ to.” ‘I don’t want to save the carnival, Rose, I want to save the  _ people.” _

 The carnival started to get sucked away and the Doctor stepped forward to catch Rose and she moved away from him, looking affronted.  He curled his fingers into his hand, but then reached for her hand.  She seemed unable to resist such a familiar motion, and she slipped her hand into his.  

 Suddenly, something came over her.  She twisted his arm and pushed him to the sand.  He cried out, knowing for sure they had done something to her now. She was ten times stronger now.  She stared down into his eyes, her own flashing in anger.  

 “ _Theta,”_ she hissed, her eyes still glinting with barely restrained anger, and the teleporter took her again before she could say anything else.  

 He stared down at his arm, where she had grabbed him, his hand shaking.  

 They’d destroyed her mind, taken it and molded it to be something that hated him. He had seen it in her eyes, the hatred and darkness that had _never_ been in her.  He knew this was wrong, that even if he had grabbed her, she wouldn’t have been able to stay. The teleporter would’ve taken her.  

 He only hoped her mind wasn’t too altered.

 They’d told her his name.

 They’d taken something as sacred as his name, something he would’ve given to her if they married, on the night of their wedding… They’d taken a sacred moment he was hoping to have, now that he had thought long and hard about making Rose his very one and only, while she was gone.

And they’d ruined it.

 


	13. Chapter 13

The Doctor stayed at the beach all night, scanning it.  There was nothing there, nothing at all.  No trace of the carousel, no trace of Rose, or the blue light that had spilled from her chest.  He had no idea what it was, and that scared him more than anything else.  

Not knowing was the worst thing in the world, in the Doctor’s opinion.  And not knowing what was happening to Rose was  _ definitely  _ worse.  She could be in trouble, she could be almost dead, and he wouldn't know.  So the most he could do was wait here, since he couldn’t get to her.  And so, instead of panicking and pacing like he usually did, he sat in the sand, staring out at the ocean.  Achaz sat with him, a little afraid to leave him alone.  

“Are you alright?” He asked softly, wondering if he should call a therapist for this odd man.

“I’m always alright,” the Doctor murmured, “I’m more worried about her.”

“What do you think happened?” Achaz asked, hoping it wasn’t too sensitive a topic.  He couldn’t hold back asking, though, he was far too curious.  He’d never seen anything like this before.

The Doctor shook his head. “I don’t know.  I know, I  _ know  _ that they’ve done something to her mind.  There’s no way she behaved like that on her own.”

“She was stiff,” Achaz said, “Like… Mechanical.”

The Doctor nodded, filing away that information.  “Yeah, she was,” he said, and furrowed his brows.  “She was stronger, too,” He showed Achaz his hand.  She’d put her hand in his and squeezed so hard that little purple bruises scattered across the back of his hand.  Achaz hissed when he looked at it, his face screwing up.

“God,” he breathed, “That’s really bad.”

“It’ll be fine tomorrow,” The Doctor said, “I don’t want her to see them.  I don’t want her to feel bad about it.”

“You don’t want her to feel  _ bad  _ about it?” Achaz almost squeaked. “I’m sorry, but she… She hurt you, and she would’ve kept on doing it if that… Teleporter thing hadn’t taken them back.”

“Yes, back, yes, back, exactly where is  _ back?”  _ The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets as he got to his feet. “I would like to know how to get to where they are so I can get Rose back here.”

Achaz didn’t get up, just stared after the Doctor.  “Why do you think they changed her clothes?” He asked, knowing that he should probably get the Doctor off the topic of ‘going’ anywhere, since they didn’t really have anywhere to go.  Even if they tried to get somewhere, there was really nowhere that they could try to get to, to get to Rose.

The Doctor thought for a moment, his brain calculating. “I think there must be a reason,” he said, “My fear, my  _ greatest  _ fear is that she gets sacrificed.  Most sacrificial gowns from off world are white, but they look like the one Rose was wearing.  I was hoping she’d stay with us.”

“I don’t think she had a choice.”

“Guess not,” the Doctor said, feeling a bit spaced.

“What are you going to do?”

“Wait right here until tomorrow night.”

“I thought you might do something stupid, like try to dig through the sand to get to her.”  Achaz laughed a little.

The Doctor smiled and shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about me, Achaz. I can be a very patient man if I get around to it.’

For some reason, Achaz believed him.  But he wasn’t about to leave him alone either.

******************

Rose’s memories were becoming very scrambled.  Her memories of the Doctor faded and he transformed into Theta, a man young and full of life.  She hated him for it.  She hated his joy.

“How did you know his name?” she asked from her place on the bed, where she was strapped down.

“Hush, now,” the Game Runner’s voice was far away, as he stood on the opposite end of the room.  “I know his name because… Well, he is a very well known man, and I have known friends of him in the past.  I think you have guessed I’m not human.”  He sighed, “I just want to spread happiness, and a man like Theta… He hinders it.”

“It wouldn’t have to be like this if he’d just agreed to work with us,” she heard the Game Runner say, but she couldn’t respond now, more medicine being pumped into her system.  “But no, he’s worried about the people dying.  Like it  _ matters.  _ He should know how wonderful it is to experience happiness.”

Rose, with her eyes still closed, felt a flash of anger shoot through her.  This was  _ wrong,  _ she told herself, the fact that she had ever been close with him.  She felt her hands clench at her sides as anger boiled through her veins, climbing up to her face and down to her feet.  

Her body felt empty, the only thing left the pulsing blue light within her.

“And you, your kindness,” the Game Runner said to her, where she lay, strapped to the table.  “He is completely devoted to you. Seeing you like this will destroy him.  Which, of course, is the point.” he chuckled.  “Now you work for me, you don’t get to love him anymore.”

Rose found that, all of a sudden, she had no understanding of love, especially not love for Theta.  He was simply a carefree arse who thought he was high and mighty because of his Time Lord status.  She hated him for it, hated him for everything he did. This was not fair, that he got the world while she suffered and would inevitably die young.  How did that make any sense?  That she should be the most lively out of the two of them, and yet her life would be squandered first?  

She felt heaviness crawl through her limbs, and in the back of her head she heard the Game Runner still talking.  Her body jeered in response, hating Theta for everything he had done to her.  He had killed her in so many ways. He’d left her behind on so many occasions, only saying later that he would ‘get back to her’.  What if he hadn’t? What if luck had never been on his side.   


Why had she ever trusted him?  She remembered one night, now, at the forefront of her mind, where he had comforted her while she cried, after an Impossible Planet.  He had promised her forever, and the he had allowed her to be lost.  

“He promised,” she whispered.

“He promised what, Rose?” The Game Runner asked.

“He promised me forever, that he’d never leave me behind,” she admitted, her eyes opening, almost against her will.  

“And what did he do to you, Rose?”

“He left me behind.”

“Yes.”

“And he wants to save those people, but it never occurred to him that I might need him.”

“You are not his primary concern, Rose,” the Game Runner said, sitting down next to her.  “I know, it really isn’t fair, and you deserve better from a friend, a partner.”

“I don’t want friends, and I don’t want partners,” she said, glaring up at him. “I want him to die.”

“Who?  Who do you want to die?”

“Theta.”

He released the clasps on her wrists and ankles and she sat up, rubbing at the chafing skin.  The Game Runner shrugged at her, his attitude aloof.  “Then why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I kill him?” She mused. “I could. Would you let me?”

The Game Runner smiled. “Yes, Rose, I would let you kill him.  If it was what you really wanted, if you know you wouldn’t regret it.”

“I wouldn’t,” she promised with conviction, her hands tightening into fists.  “I could never regret getting rid of the person that brought me so much pain while he is only allowed to feel joy. It’s not fair.”

The Game Runner watched the struggle play on her face, and he nodded.  “You’re right, Rose, it really isn’t fair, is it?  That he gets to live such a full and exciting left, and you get to be left behind every time.”

“No, it’s not.” Rose murmured, thinking about killing Theta now.  It would be so easy, with this newfound power that she was starting to feel coursing through her body.  She could hardly tell who she was anymore and she found that she didn’t even mind.  She felt more alive than she had in a very long time.  There were thoughts of times that she was a goddess, that she controlled time.  Theta had feared her, she remembered.  

“The next time you see Theta, do you want to kill him?” The Game Runner asked.  

Rose glanced at him from where she sat and nodded slowly.  “Yes,” she said finally.

“And how happy would that make you?”

“Very happy.”

“How happy would it make the people who come to the carnival?” The Game Runner asked, stepping closer to Rose.

She looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes a little.  “He wants to take the carnival away because it’s illegal…” She said slowly, “Because people are dying… But it makes them so happy.”

“Yes, it does.”

“So they would be… Very happy if Theta died.”

“So will you kill him?”

“Yes.”

The Game Runner smiled.  “Excellent.”

*******************************

Later that day, after he gave her more medicine, the Game Runner took her to the carnival in the daylight.  She still wore her dress, and told the Game Runner that she thought that she would not fit in.

“Rose, this carnival owes you.  The people won’t even notice that you look different.”

And they didn’t.  Loads of young people milled about in the carnival, still dressed like the forties, but Rose had a feeling this was not Earth’s nineteen forties.  She looked around, everything looking very different in the sunlight.  The summer breeze touched her, but the touch was muted, as though she was dressed in more than just a dress.  Like her body was barely her own anymore.

The people did not notice her differences, but they did notice her, and many of the men around the fairgrounds approached her flirtatiously, and she brushed them off.  She had a job to do, and would not be swayed until Theta was dead.  She was not sure why all of a sudden she felt the urge to kill him.

“I’m ready,” she said, staring at one of the games that a young girl was playing.  “I want these people to be happy.”

The Game Runner nodded, knowing that she would come around, mostly due to the medicine that he had been pumping into her since he had taken her from the Doctor.  “I knew you would, Rose,” he said.  “Though you must do something before you can kill Theta.”

“What?” She asked, furrowing her brows.  What sort of thing would she have to do  _ before  _ killing him? She was beginning to grow impatient.

“You have to lull him into a false sense of security,” he said, “And go back with him.   You can kill him in his sleep after a bit of that, but he has to trust you.”

She nodded.  “Fine,” she said, “I can do that.”

“Can you?”

She sent him a sharp look. “He’s already in love with me.  I can get him close.”

He smiled.  It was slow and cruel and crawled across his face.  “Good.  He might try to kiss you, what with the obsession he has with you.”

She shrugged.  “Who cares?  He can do whatever he wants, he’ll be dead within the week.”

“Well, yes, that’s a good outlook.”

She nodded to herself, “I suppose so,” she said, “Might as well make his last days meaningful.”

************

If Rose was not under the influence of the medicine the Game Runner was giving her, than her heart would have broken with her own words.  

And the Doctor sat on the beach and waited for her to return.


	14. Chapter 14

The wait for night was agonizing, for both the Doctor and Rose.  It really did figure that the moment the Doctor got his needs and desires in order, she would be taken from him, and he would have to wait patiently to get her back.  

Rose, on the other hand, was anxious for revenge.  She wasn’t even sure what the revenge was for, only that it ate at her in a way nothing else ever had.  It was like she needed to get him back for something that he had done to her, even if she couldn’t recall at the moment, what he had done.  She watched the carnival, standing guard over the carousel, as the Game Runner spoke to her about the plans he had.

“You realize, of course, that you must return to awaken the carousel.”  He was saying, and she nodded.

“Theta wishes to come back every night, most likely.  He is not a man that gives up, and not knowing something will eat at a man so powerful,” she shook her head. “He is so very foolish.”

“I agree,” the Game Runner crossed his arms.  “I do not think it is unrealistic to want the people that survive the attacks to be happy.

There was something struggling in Rose, perhaps an essence of her former self, that said that people deserved to live long lives, and could be happy in other ways.  But for some reason, it was smothered quickly, and this time she knew it wasn’t her that had smothered it.

“What am I to say to him?” She asked.

“Act as you think you would have acted in the past, before your eyes were opened.”

“I suppose I loved him?”

 The Game Runner shook his head. “A man like this is enticing, Rose, because he is powerful and alive in so many ways.  But you must break free from him, he will do nothing but oppress you.  You realize this, I think.  I hope, at least, that I have taught you how to escape when a man like him comes along.”

 Rose tilted her head and squinted at the men at the carnival.  “Are all men bad?” She asked, as a little girl would ask her father after a first love gone bad, the playground romance shattered.

 Had Rose been in her right mind, she would have realized that nothing about her relationship with the Doctor was juvenile.  His devotion to her was unmatched by anyone who had ever known her.  He adored her with a passion she couldn’t even see, he kept it so hidden and buried inside him.

 “No,” the Game Runner answered her, “Not all men are bad, but it is easy to see how you would think such a thing.  My dear, many men will express an interest in you, but you must choose wisely.”

 “I suppose I thought I had, with Theta,” she mused, “Until I realized his true evil.”

 “Very good,” he said lowly, and looked at the sun beginning to set.  “The guards will be here soon. We must take our leave.”

 

**********

 When they appeared this time, the Doctor was nearly vibrating.  He saw Rose once more on the carousel, perched on one of the horses, but the thing was still.  She reached her hand out for him, her face blank.  That was not usual for Rose, her face usually so emotive and expressive.  

Still, the pull of her was enticing, and Achaz’s call of “hold on!” was not enough to stop him from approaching her, ready to embrace her.   


He finally stopped in front of her, on the carousel, a bit under her, her humble servant.  He was afraid to touch her, like perhaps she would vanish again or call him by his real name.  

“Rose,” he whispered, “Are you alright?”

Her eyes flashed.  “Yes.  I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” he reached his hand up for her, and she avoided it, glaring at his hand until he removed it.  

“Ah,’ the Game Runner approached, his hands jammed into his pockets.  “I have decided to release Rose to you.  I am finished with her.”

“What did you use her for?” The Doctor snapped.

 The Game Runner shrugged, “You’ll find that she is in complete working order, not a hair on her head has been harmed.  She was merely assisting me.”  He gave Rose a look that said she’d better go along with whatever he said so she could kill him.  She nodded, but the Doctor was so blinded by her that he didn’t notice the movement. 

“What’s the catch?” He asked.

“You leave me alone,” The Game Runner said, “Let me do what I like.”

The Doctor frowned.  Well, he could make a promise and break it, if it meant he could have Rose with him. “Fine,” he said, and reached up for Rose again.  This time, she let him help her down.  He breathed out a sigh of relief when her feet hit the ground.

He cupped her cheek and looked down into her eyes.  Something was wrong, he could tell, but it wasn’t something he could address right at the moment, especially not in front of the Game Runner.  He stroked his thumb over her cheekbone.  “Come on, let’s go,” he whispered.and she nodded, her brain fighting with itself over something she couldn’t understand.

“Can you walk?” He asked distantly, and she noticed that she had grown lightheaded.  She nodded, her hand pressed against his chest to steady herself.  His hands were at her shoulders, keeping her close and upright.

“I think so,” she said, not knowing why her brain had shorted out so.  She pushed away from him and he released her, but not before reaching for her hand.  She let him take it, and the Doctor glared at the Game Runner over his shoulder.  “If I find that you’ve hurt her in any way, I’ll kill you.”

The Game Runner’s smile fell as the Doctor took Rose away, back towards where Achaz stood in front of his house.

“What are you going to do?” Achaz asked anxiously.

“We’ll be back tomorrow night,” he said, “For right now, you get some sleep,” he rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his forehead. “I’ll try to do the same.”

Achaz nodded and looked at Rose. “Welcome back,” he said cheerfully, smiling.  He nodded to the Doctor, who gave a little nod back.

They parted ways, and Rose found herself in an unfamiliar yet very familiar hotel room.  The Doctor was standing with his hands in his pockets, watching her carefully.  “You might want to put on some jim-jams, go to bed,” he said, “I expect you haven’t slept too well.”

She nodded, suddenly feeling very tired. “Yeah,” She said, “I’m gonna… I’ll be right back.” She moved to where she had been keeping her clothes while they were here, and pulled out pajamas that felt foreign in her hands.  She moved to the bathroom to change, noting that the Doctor’s eyes were still on her.  

When she came back, he was also in his jim jams, staring out the glass of the balcony. His eyes snapped to her when she entered his field of vision, and he got to his feet, turning to face her.

“I was so worried,” He whispered, “I was so  _ worried  _ about you, Rose, I just sat on the beach waiting for you,” tears started to build in his eyes, “If I lose you, Rose, I lose  _ everything.” _

Rose felt an odd wave of sympathy, and she stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck.  “Theta,” she whispered, trying to push him away, but he held her tighter.  Her saying his name seemed to have a very positive effect on him.

“That name belongs to you,” he said, “It’s only for you to say anymore, and I can’t explain what that means right now to you, it’s too soon, but it  _ is  _ yours.”

Rose didn’t know what that meant, but she had a feeling that it was something important.  He seemed very touched that she knew his name and was using it.  Her reaction was to use it less, because she didn’t want him to get any joy from this, but she couldn’t call him ‘Doctor’. She could not label him as a man that fixes things when there was nothing to be fixed. When he only fixed those who  _ could  _ be happy, but now lived in terrible misery because he broke them.  She had a feeling that she was broken as well, on some level. But she wasn’t sure that it was him that caused it.

She let him hold her, his hearts pounding under her cheek.  He kissed the top of her head and released her, stepping back.

“Sorry,” he said, dashing away tears.  “I’m sure this isn’t what you wanted, coming back after what you must have endured.  I don’t  suppose you’d mind sharing-”  he glanced over at the bed.

She thought distantly that yes, they had shared the bed.  How nice that had been, she marveled.  He was warm, but not too warm.  He was a very nice pillow, if nothing else.  She supposed that the bed looked very comfortable as well, so it would be really quite good to lay in a bed after being strapped to the table in the Game Runner’s facilities.  

“We can share,” she said finally, slowly.nodding.  

“Where have you been sleeping?”

“On a table.”

He cringed and reached for her back.  He started massaging her with his fingers, the angle awkward, but she felt her tense muscles release, and her forehead fell to his chest.  It seemed that she was still drawn to this man even as she despised him.

He was whispering, in a musical language that her brain helpfully hinted might be Gallifreyan.  Whatever he was saying to her, he didn’t want her to understand.

After several minutes, she grew tired and pulled away, plodding to the side of the bed she knew she had been sleeping on.  She crawled under the covers without waiting for him, cuddling deep in the blankets, the mattress curving to her and cradling her in the way the table had not, and with no restraints she was able to turn over until comfortable.

He got in after her, laying on his side to look at her.  He seemed to be waiting for something, and she realized it was probably for permission to cuddle her.  She sighed and nodded, letting her eyes fall closed.  Like the Game Runner said, she had to make him feel secure.

He eagerly scooted forward and wrapped his arms around her after pulling the blankets higher around them.  Their legs tangled together and he was altogether too close, altogether too wonderfully warm, and she struggled not to throw herself from the bed and out of his arms.  

She heard him whispering again, and she squeezed her eyes, hoping to hear from him exactly what he was saying.  Her mind swirled, the blue dust that lived in her body was coming to life.  It was not visible, supposedly to keep the Doctor from growing suspicious, but she was starting to be able to understand him, which she had a feeling he did not want.

 “Theta?” She asked, her voice small as she tried to make out what he was saying.

 She let him kiss her forehead and temple, and she let him press his cheek to her head, still speaking lowly.  She was starting to be able to translate it in her mind, but it was garbled, like a baby just starting to learn English.

 It seemed to take ages, but the music that was rumbling from him started to become words, and she realized that he was only saying the same phrase over and over, as though it was a prayer that he clung to desperately.  As he was clinging to her.

 And she realized, somewhere along the line, that she was clinging to him as well, tears falling, though she knew not why.  They lay, gripping each other as though they were lovers long parted.

  
Rose fought with her mind, not understanding why her body was betraying her like this.  There was a disconnect between her mind and her actions and she couldn’t fix it. Her hatred for Theta was overruled by the way she was gripping him tight, pajama shirt fisted in her hands.

She heard him whispering into her hair, the words now clear.  One phrase morphed to two, words washing over her.

_ “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.  My Rose, oh, how I love you.” _

The words lulled her to sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

She woke up thrashing and disoriented, which was very odd for her, even in the Game Runner’s lab.  Her hand connected with flesh and she heard Theta cry out.  Her brain fired off, labeling him easily as the enemy.  She remembered briefly that he was supposed to trust her, she was supposed to make him.  He loved her, after all, he had gone to bed chanting his love for her in the language of his people.  It should have filled her with joy, and instead she got absolute disgust settling in her gut.  She should have left him alone, and allowed herself to wake up and calm down.  But instead she threw herself over him and settled her hands over his neck, choking him.

She was blinded by something, what, she wasn’t sure, but she could barely see him beneath her as he gasped awake with her hands on him, fingers and thumbs squeezing, trying to crush his throat.  Tears spilled over her cheeks, though she didn’t know why.  It was almost like whatever part of herself was buried didn’t want her to kill him.  But that was not the part in control.  The mind may be stronger than the body, but not if the body is already acting.  

Rose warred with herself in her brain, gasping against it as the Doctor-Theta- she was growing so confused- spoke to her.  He must have a stronger throat and esophagus than her, since he was a Time Lord, but either way, it was driving her mad. She cried out and pushed harder, trying to choke him out before he came to complete consciousness.  He was still waking up, after all, so this had to be the end of the almighty Last of the Time Lords.  He had bowed to her in the way a Time Lord should never bow: He bowed to her in love.  Now he would bow to her in death. 

The almighty Time Lord, taken down by a young girl from Earth. 

She had not allowed thought for his strength, as he was a man and bigger than her.  He took her wrists in hands and flipped them over, pulling her hands from him and knocking the wind out of her all in one move.  

“Rose, wake  _ up,”  _ he said, his eyes full of concern and the exhaustion of just being woken up.

She writhed against his iron grip, trying to get him off of her, begging him to let her kill him.

“ROSE!”

She snapped up, sitting up under him.  “Sorry,” she said, and collapsed back.

He rolled away from her, and she noted that she had ripped his pajama top.  He sat away from her, feeling a bit like he should distance himself from her.  He ran his hands through his hair and stared at her.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know, I just woke up,” she snapped.

“You’re safe now,” he said, “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, feeling spaced out. Nothing around her felt real anymore, and she didn’t know why.  “Yeah, I know.”

He scooted a little closer to her, watching her carefully.  Her eyes were drawn to his chest. 

“You’re bleeding,” she said dully.

“It’ll be healed by morning,” he waved off, “I’m more worried about you.”

She blinked.

“Rose?” His eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”

“I think it might have been a nightmare,” she said, putting her face in her hands.  If he could heal himself overnight, she was never going to be able to kill him.  She would never be strong enough.

“It’s alright,” He wrapped his arms around her curled up form and she stiffened.  Didn’t he know that she was thinking about killing him?  How  _ stupid  _ was he?  Did he really think that just because they shared a bed tonight that she wanted him to hold her now.   


She had to let him, though, or he would be suspicious.  Was he really so blind in his love that he didn’t think her choking him was intentional?  Was he really so dreadfully stupid?  

She curled her hands into fists and closed her eyes, resisting the feelings that battled within her.  Her body didn’t feel right, like she wasn’t even really in it.  Disorienting was certainly a word for it.  

He was still murmuring to her, his words muffled and unsure.  She wondered if he often comforted her like this, or if it was because he had confessed his love for her.  Maybe he was thinking that it was alright now, since he thought she couldn’t understand him.  She breathed out a sigh and closed her eyes, trying to calm herself, even as the man she was supposed to kill cuddled up against her, murmuring nonsense into her neck.

She wanted to throw him off, cast him aside and fight back against him.  But he wouldn’t understand, it wouldn’t make any sense to him.  He’d be hurt, for sure, since the person she used to be dictated that she should cuddle up with this man, and cast her worries onto him because he would carry them. She didn’t want him to.

She hadn’t even been dreaming when she had woken up, and there was no reason for her to be thinking anything dark unless the idea was in her head subconsciously, which she supposed was possible. But she wasn’t sure why she had swam up from sleep in a violent manner, throwing herself on him and trying to strangle him.  

 “Rose, come back,” the Doctor said, shaking her shoulder a little and propping himself above her.  “What’s wrong with you?” He asked, furrowing his brows at her.

She shook her head.  “Nothing,” she said, blinking up at him.

“You’re not acting right,” he said, sitting up and turning her over. He reached up to her neck and took her pulse, counting it as he watched her eyes.  He released her and sat back, looking at her with a puzzled expression.

“I’m fine,” she said, rolling her eyes and turning over onto her side.  He pulled her back, looking down at her.  He looked suspicious, and that wouldn’t do.  Her stomach rolling as she did it, she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m  _ fine.” _

That seemed to reassure him, for some odd reason.  He pressed a kiss to her forehead in response and curled up behind her, fitting his knees in behind hers.  

“Go to sleep, Rose,” he said softly, “I’ve got you.”

She fell asleep again, marvelling at her failure.

The Doctor didn't wake up before her, so she had to roll away from him in the morning.  His face was buried in her neck, breath touching her skin.  Luckily, his hold on her was loose enough that she could escape.  He merely made an odd little snuffling sound and rolled over, hugging a pillow in her absence.

She scowled down at him.  That stupid man really did love her.  She didn’t remember a lot from her past, but from what she could, there didn’t seem to be anything worth loving.  She was boring, lived in a poor part of town growing up.  She travelled with him, and her eyes had only been opened when she had met the Game Runner.  The Doctor was a selfish man, and would continue to be selfish.  He did what he thought was ‘good’ which sometimes wasn’t very good at all.

Feeling dirty after being wrapped up in him all night, she plodded into the bathroom with a set of clothes that weren’t familiar, and showered with water as hot as she could get it.  The blue light glowed out from her chest, and she wondered, briefly, what it was.  It didn’t hurt, but it did seem to connect her to the carousel. She liked that idea.  She was trying to save the carnival after all.  She wondered if the Game Runner would be there when she and the Doctor went to that boy Achaz’s house.  He was supposed to protect the carnival too, wasn’t he? Wasn’t it both of their jobs?  

She got out of the shower to find the Doctor already dressed in his pinstripe suit trousers and shirtsleeves.  He was staring out the window but turned around when he heard her enter.  His face lit up when he saw her.

 “Thought you might want to get clean, after everything that happened yesterday,” he said.

She furrowed her brows. Surely _he_ didn’t dislike all the cuddling as she had. “What do you mean?” She asked cautiously.   

“I  _ mean,” _ he said, “Everything with the carnival, you probably didn’t bathe while you were there.”

She hadn’t thought about it, but she supposed she hadn’t had a bath.  She rubbed her wrists, remembering being tied down to the table as the Game Runner administered medicine to her.  What if it wore off?  Would she be in trouble.  She chewed her lip and stared at him.

“Theta-”

“Rose,” he reached for her hand, and not wanting to be suspicious, she took it. He smiled and continued.  “You can only call me that when it’s just us.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a name only one person is supposed to have, it’s a… Gift, to my people, to know your… to know someone’s full true name.”

 Rose furrowed her brows.  “Then why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I wanted to,” he said raggedly, his face looking suddenly sad.  “It should be special, on a  _ very  _ special night, but the Game Runner took that from me, gave you my name before I could offer it to you.  It’s supposed to be different.”

Rose found herself spacing out a bit. She didn’t care about this man’s name, though she would have to make note to not call him by his name around anyone else, because there was no telling what a man this dangerous would do. So she nodded. 

 “Right.”

 He kissed her forehead again and pulled her into his arms. She went, because it was expected, and listened to the double beat of his hearts against her cheek.  They were racing slightly, picking up the pace the longer she touched him.

 She felt an overwhelming sense of power wash over her.  This man really did love her.  This man, this _alien man_ loved her so desperately that his 900 year old hearts were thundering at the chance to be close to her.  She had a feeling that no human woman had experienced anything quite like this and it made her nearly go mad.  

 She could take advantage of this.  The Doctor would do whatever Rose Tyler said, no matter when she said it or what it was that she said. She could make him her pet, her servant, to do with as she willed.  He would be helpless to stop it because he loved her.

 How _weak_ he was.  She tested her theory, lifting her chin so her lips brushed his jaw. “Theta…” She whispered.

“Rose?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down, threading her fingers through his hair.  She was surprised with how cold she was, how much she didn’t care about anything that he did, anything that he wanted.  That Time Lord did not matter to her whatsoever.  

 His hands were spread across her back, as though he was trying to touch her in as much space as possible, but his hands never wandered past what was appropriate.  He was being infinitely gentle with her, like he was expecting her to break in half if he held her too close. 

 She decided to test his willpower.  Maybe she could break him tonight, get to him to do as she pleased when it came to the carnival. She breathed into his ear and trailed her nose down his cheek.   “Theta, do you love me?” She asked, trying to sound meek, as this girl would, the old Rose, the Rose who was weak.

 He clutched her tighter, pushing his face into her hair. “Oh, my Rose, how I love you.”  His voice was filled with awe, and she thought again of how stupid he was.

Because he was wrong.  He was  _ stupid.   _ She did not belong to him, she was not ‘his’ Rose.  She was not a woman to be submissive and belong to any man that desired to have her, though she knew that this was much deeper than a simple want.  

No, she did not belong to him, but he belonged to her.

Rose Tyler owned the Doctor, and he was helpless before her.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking about remastering a couple of my SUPER OLD fics for the next two 'canonical' fics. Would you guys enjoy that at all?
> 
> Anyways, I hope you like the chapter :)

Rose let him spend the day with her, holding her hand in his and guiding her through the boardwalk and around the beach town they resided in.  He seemed to know so much about everything, and she couldn’t stop herself from being a bit impressed.

He tugged her into his side, continuing to walk happily along with her.  She realized that on some level he was completely and utterly dedicated to her.  There was nothing for him but her, and that was why he was so afraid to lose her.  She wondered if he would find peace in death, if he would be free.  Maybe her killing him would be his release from a world that treated him so cruelly.  She stared up at him, letting him guide them where he pleased.

“And what are you looking at, Miss Tyler?” he teased, smiling down at her.

Her stomach rolled, but she really couldn’t lie. She looked away from him and lifted a shoulder, still feeling his eyes on her.  “You,” she admitted.  “You have dreadfully sad eyes.”

He shifted uncomfortably and looked away from her.  “Rose, you know why.”

She did, and she hated him for it. She knew what he had done, and she wished there was a way to reverse it.  Though she couldn’t remember why he did the things he did, and she wondered if that made all the difference.  She had a feeling it might, but she wasn’t about to ask him. It would raise suspicion.  

She was supposed to know him like nobody else did, something in her mind told her that, but it wasn’t very clear.  She couldn’t just guess things about the past they had together. He was smart.  

And yet, he hadn’t noticed anything amiss with her yet, so maybe he wasn’t as smart as he pretended to be.  Maybe she had been pulled in by him so effortlessly when she had been younger that she hadn’t noticed how he truly was.  She set her jaw and did not speak again. What could she say now?  For all she knew, she had ruined everything and the Game Runner would absolutely hate her, and she couldn’t have that, not now. Not when she was so close to killing the Doctor and saving the carnival.

Part of her had to admit that she was numb inside, though she didn’t know why.  She was walking hand in hand with a man she knew she used to feel things for and now didn’t.  She knew she was supposed to look into his eyes and see a man that she appreciated and loved like no other.  She was  _ supposed  _ to be happy, or at least feel emotion.

And she didn’t feel anything except a sense of duty. Is that what life was supposed to be like?  Mission after mission, job after job without anything to it at all?  How horrible.  The thought she had about that was mundane enough though, and flitted gracefully into the darkness.  She pursed her lips and looked out at the sea. At least she could acknowledge that that was beautiful.

“You were always trying to get me to go to the beach, when we first started traveling with Jack,” the Doctor said thoughtfully.  “Didn’t think you’d be so persistent.”

Jack. She remembered him, quite vaguely.  She remembered thinking he was very fit, but there was something that kept her from pursuing him.  He was attractive, she lamented, and she could’ve had him, but she didn’t. Why?

Her eyes were drawn to hers and the Doctor’s hands, locked together.  Oh.  It had been him.  He was the reason.

The Doctor was rattling on now, telling her facts about the place and discussing where she thought they should go next, and she felt like she should be responding to him, but she couldn’t get her mind to work.

Her mind was starting to cloud, like she was getting too far away from the carousel and it was calling her back.  She gasped and stumbled forward, clutching her chest.  The Doctor’s arms were around her instantly and he pulled her back up and out of the way of other people.

“Rose?” He cupped her cheek and looked down into her eyes, trying to seek her out.

She grabbed his arm.  “It hurts.”

“Something’s wrong with you,” he said plainly, and Rose felt her stomach drop.  He knew.  He knew what she was, what she had become.  She broke on a sob and swept her up into his arms.  

“Where are you taking me?” She asked.

“The TARDIS.”

“No!” She writhed against him and he dropped her legs to the ground.  

“Rose, people are staring, they’re going to think I’m hurting you.  Stop it, I just want to run a test to see what’s going on with you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, closing her eyes against her headache. He swept her up again and this time she let him, her head in her hands as though trying to keep her skull from splitting. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever had a headache this bad before.  She whimpered and pressed into his shoulder. 

“It’s alright,” he whispered, “I’m going to take care of you.”

The closer they got to the TARDIS the more agitated Rose found herself becoming.  She felt the ship start to try to get into her head and she curled her fingers into her hair.

He continued murmuring to her as he walked them all the way to the TARDIS.  A man stopped them along the way.

“What’s going on here, mate?” The man demanded.

“Listen, she’s ill, I’m taking her back to our hotel to take care of her,” the Doctor said, his voice even and controlled.  He shifted her in his grip.  “She’s  _ hurt,  _ let me go.”

The man scowled at him.  “How do I know you’re not going to hurt her?"   


Rose pressed her forehead against his shoulder.  “Doctor, please.”

He kissed her forehead. “I know, I’m trying to get us back.”

The man seemed to be convinced by Rose’s words and he left them alone, though he seemed irritated by it.  The Doctor rushed to the TARDIS, which opened the doors for him and shut them behind them.

“Thank you,” The Doctor said into the empty console room as he hurried Rose to the med bay.  She was disoriented and he felt something inside her change as they walked down the hallway.  She twisted in his grip and grabbed his hair, trying to force him against the wall.  He cried out and released her.  Her feet fell to the ground and she took him down with her.  

She was on top of him, scrambling for his neck again.

“Why are you doing that for?” The Doctor demanded, sounding angry.  He flipped her over, pressing her hands to the floor.  He searched her as she tried to reach up and hit him and strangle him.

“Let me up!” She snarled, kicking under him.  She seemed to get an idea and drove her knee up into his groin.  He cried out and fell back, grimacing in pain.  She launched herself on him again, and the TARDIS cried out in worry.

“Help me!” The Doctor shouted at his ship.

“Yes, call for help!” Rose shouted, reaching for his neck again while he still tried to recover.  “Call for help, you  _ weak  _ man!” The Doctor was still too strong for her but she didn’t stop trying.  He didn’t want to hurt her, his very last wish in the world was to keep Rose safe, but she was definitely stronger now than she had been, and he didn’t know what had caused that.

Now that she was on top of him again, it was harder for him to pin her down.  Fear coiled in his stomach and he had to hold it back, hold back the physical pain he was feeling and the emotional pain she was causing him.  She drew her hand back and punched him, her hit surprising him more than wounding him.  If he had been human, there would have been a bruise.  

“Rose!” He rolled them over and the TARDIS started pumping in a gas to knock Rose out.  She struggled under him, seeking to bite and claw at him, but she slowed as the gas took her.  She collapsed completely, her head lolling to the side.

The Doctor choked on a sigh and scooped her up in his arms.  Something was definitely wrong and he had to find out what it was.  He took her all the way to the med bay and strapped her ankles and wrists down just in case she woke up and tried to kill him again.

When it had happened before, he had thought that maybe there had been a reason she had done it, but no, it was quite clear that this had been intentional. Whoever this Game Runner was had done something to Rose, and that made fury light its way through the Doctor’s body.

He attached a few wires to Rose and applied little pads to her temples so he could read her brainwaves.  He sat at her bedside as the tests ran, wanting to reach for her hand but afraid to touch her after she had now attacked him twice.  

He rubbed his jaw, remembering how she had hit him. She had tapped him occasionally, when she was joking, but this was something else entirely, and it broke his hearts. He had just come to terms, Gods, he had  _ confessed  _ to her exactly how he felt, and she was supposed to love him back, wasn’t she?  He thought she loved him.  Had he been wrong?

The TARDIS shouted at him in his mind, alerting him to the tests being done.  Rose’s chest started to glow and Rose gasped in her sleep.  He stood up and looked at the blue light coming from her skin.  

The TARDIS effectively told him that this was how the Game Runner was transforming Rose to be like the carnival, to follow the carnival and protect it.  And to kill him.

“How did he know my name?” The Doctor asked, reading the pieces of information that were coming across the screen.  It was his name, over and over, both “Theta” and “the Doctor” coming through repeatedly.  

The Doctor hung his head. This wasn’t fair.  Rose deserved more than this, and he was still feeling cheated.  He had held her so close last night, thought she was having a nightmare. But she wasn’t, she had just been doing what she was told.

The TARDIS told the Doctor that the Game Runner was slightly telepathic, and that would be the only way for him to know the Doctor’s name, as he held it so close to him. It had always been meant for Rose, and he knew that now, but now it was utterly ruined, and he didn't think Rose would forgive herself for any of this.

“How do I get her back?” The Doctor whispered.  “How do I fix this?”

The TARDIS told him that very easily, she could fix Rose’s mind, but that she wasn’t sure what to do about the blue glow.  There wasn’t anything she or the Doctor could understand.

The Doctor looked back to Rose.  The glow had settled, as the TARDIS soothed her body and repaired the damage to her mind.  She would need to stay in the TARDIS all day, just to make sure nothing happened to her brain.  The Game Runner was not allowed to go fishing in her brain anymore. 

She started to wake up, then, moaning in pain. She tried to move her hands and couldn’t.  Her eyes flew open and she looked to the Doctor.

“What happened,” she whispered.  

“Do you remember anything?”

Her eyes started to brim with tears and she nodded.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I have a really big headache.”

The Doctor stroked his hand over her sweaty hair.  “The TARDIS will give you something for the pain.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.  “I hurt you.”

“It’s alright, Rose, it wasn’t you.”

“It was me, it was my hands, and- oh, God, no wonder you strapped me down, I hate this, I hate myself, I-”

 He released her bonds and sat back.  “I’m not afraid of you, Rose, nor am I angry with you.”

 “You’re not?”

 “No,” he said, “I could never be angry at you for something you can’t control.”

 “Can I have a hug?” she whispered, tears streaming freely down her cheeks now.

 The Doctor sent a mental check to see if the TARDIS had given Rose medicine.  The ship said helpfully that she had, and the Doctor nodded to Rose.  “Come here.”

 She sat up slowly as he disengaged every wire and piece from her body.  Then she swung her legs from the bed and threw her arms around his neck.  “I’m _sorry,”_ she sobbed out, “I could’ve killed you!” 

 He kissed her cheek and held her closer.  “It’s alright,” he said, “I am _not_ mad at you.”

 She squeezed him so tight she felt like she must be restricting his breathing.  But he was a big, strong Time Lord of course, and it wasn’t really bothering him.  

 She pulled back, still openly sobbing.  “Your name,” she realized.  “They told me your name.”

 “Yes.”

 She reached out with trembling fingers and touched his cheek.  “Theta.”

 He shivered. “Yes.”  He smiled a little, “the TARDIS is telling me she wants to look out for you until tonight, because you’re not quite ready to be out and about, with the way your mind has been toyed with.”

 “I’m tired,” she admitted.

 “For good reason,” he decided not to tell her about the glow, as he would figure it out with the TARDIS later on, while she slept.  “You should go to bed.  Here, in the TARDIS, where she can protect your mind.”

 She shuffled a little, hiccupping and choking on her tears. “Will you stay with me?” she asked.  “I don’t want to be alone.  But if you don’t want to, I would understand, I’ve been awful.”

 “Nothing will make me want you any less,” he said.  He cupped her cheek, brushing away tears with his thumb. “I’ll stay with you forever.”

 For the first time in his life, he meant it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am leaving for Florida in a couple days so I'm not sure if I will be able to update either story before than, but I will really try!!!
> 
> Enjoy the chapter!

The Doctor had taken Rose back to her room, and she clutched his hand so tightly that he couldn’t stop himself from offering to go a step further and cuddle with her.  

“Yeah,” Rose said, adding bitterly, “If you think I won’t try to kill you again.”

He threw off his jacket, tie, and shoes before crawling into bed with her and pulling her to him. “Rose Tyler, I have complete faith in you.  The TARDIS is healing your mind, it’s alright.  And I am  _ not  _ angry at you.”

She rolled towards him and cupped his cheek.  “I never wanted to hurt you,” tears were brimming in her eyes,  She looked down to the little bruises that were forming on his neck.  She broke on a sob and pressed her forehead to his chest.

He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling her agony.  He understood what it was, to hurt somebody he loved, and he only wanted her to feel a little better about it.  She pressed a gentle kiss to his neck, presumably on the bruise that she had left.  He was hardly worried about it, they would be healed in the morning.  He would always heal, surface wise. 

She seemed to have been testing the waters with that gentle kiss, because she kissed him again, a little to the side.  “I was horrible to you,” she murmured.  “I was dead awful."   


“I told you, it’s alright.”

“Am I allowed to call you-”

“Yes,” he said before she could even finish, “Though like I said, just with the two of us.”

“You’d let me?” She pulled back to look at him. “After all this?”

“You’re the only one I want to have that name,” he said, stroking his hand through her hair.  “It’s sacred, on Gallifrey, given to wives by their husbands on their wedding night.”

Her eyes glinted, slightly with tears, perhaps with something else.  “Wedding night?”

“Yes, after a public or private handfasting ceremony,” he said slowly, “But you wouldn’t want-"   


She threw herself into his arms, rolling him over onto his back.  She squeezed him tight, her face buried in his neck.  “Doctor-”

“I don’t expect anything from you,” his hands coasted along her back, trying to soothe her if she was crying, which he was pretty sure that she wasn’t, but how was he supposed to know?  He seemed to know so little about her, as she was so attached to him now, she had  _ wept  _ when she found out that she had hurt him.  And now she clung to him like he would slip out from under her and leave.  Little did she know he wasn’t going anywhere.

He sat up and she shifted so her knees straddled his hips.  She didn’t let go of him, couldn’t bear to, really.  

“You should rest,” he said, trying to pull back from her.

She let him distance himself, and she looked down at him.  She traced her fingers along his neck and up to his jaw. She moved up to cup his cheeks and she looked down into his eyes, her eyes filling again. She blinked them back and bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

“Rose?” 

She pursed her lips, and then said softly, “You are the most important person in my life, and I can’t live with the fact that I hurt you.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you that I forgive you?”

“I still  _ did  _ it.”

He smiled softly, “We’ve both commit a bit of genocide, Rose, and this is what bothers you?”

She nodded. “Because you and I, when we’re in the TARDIS, we’re together and nothing can stop us.  And I would’ve kept trying to kill you until I did it if you hadn’t noticed.”  She lifted a shoulder.  “I want you to be happy. I want us to be happy, and I’ve ruined it.”

“You haven’t ruined everything,” he said, “You haven’t ruined  _ anything.   _ I promise.”

“I-” she hung her head, her hands still cupping his cheeks.  She was afraid to speak, afraid to say whatever it was that was coming to her mind.  She waited for several moments, settling her breathing and feeling him rub his hands along her back. 

He was so patient with her, so gentle, she thought. He was so perfect, and she didn't’ give him enough credit for that.  She wasn’t ever giving him enough credit, she only waited for him to offer her more than he was able to.

Little did she know, that he was thinking the same thing about her.  She was the most important woman who had ever wandered into his life and she made him so happy.  This didn’t change anything and he wished that she would see that, understand it.

She spoke, finally, and he felt his heart flood with absolute affection when she did.

“I love you,” she choked out. 

It wasn’t the first time she had showed him this, but when she  _ spoke  _ it, those words coming from her beautiful mouth made him want to absolutely shout for joy. Instead he squeezed her waist.  

“I love you too.”

She lifted her head and stared at him. “How can you?” She whispered, “After what I did.”

He smiled at her and forced her to look at him. “Because I killed my people and found you right after. I found you and you brought light and happiness into my life that I had banned myself from having.  You have made me a better man, a man that I wanted to be exactly for you.  I care about you more than I have cared about anyone, and you could do the most horrible thing and I am certain I would still forgive you.”

“I  _ really do  _ love you,” she proclaimed.

“I know.” And with that, he leaned forward and kissed her. 

She let out a gasp, like that was the last thing she expected, for him to kiss her.  Instead of wondering what caused this or why he would do it, she leaned closer to him, wrapping her arms all the way around him. He held her just as tight, like he couldn’t believe that she wouldn’t vanish the moment he moved away from her.

She wasn’t going anywhere. He was all she had, really, the part of her that she craved with every part of her being.  He was, in fact, a part of her. He had her accent now, she noticed, this version of him.  She loved him so completely that sometimes she didn’t even remember that the two men she loved had ever been different.  They were the same, in her mind, and she knew that that would fill him with an odd sense of relief.

Instead of thinking any further on the matter, she continued to kiss him, letting herself give herself over to him in a way that would make her heart shatter if she ever,  _ ever  _ lost him.  His hands traced under her shirt, and she clenched her hands in his hair.

He broke away from her mouth, panting harshly.  “I’m sorry. This is probably all too fast for you, after all this, your head is probably killing you-”

“Not fast enough,” she gasped, and tugged him back to her.

After a moment of letting her in control, he flipped them over, tangling them effectively in the sheets and pinning her down to the bed.  She landed roughly on the pillows and she breathed heavily into his mouth, trailing her hands down his back. 

He pulled away from her to press kisses along her jaw and down her throat.  He reached her chest, right over her heart, and pressed a gentle kiss to the skin there.  The significance of it was not lost on her, on how much he loved her heart, her spirit.  He had told her that, had told her many times that he admired how she was, how kind she was.  

She loved him with so much of herself that she could barely breathe with it all.  And she had his name now, it belonged to her, and now because of all of this they could fight the Game Runner as a united front.  Not that they weren’t united before, but this was something else. This was something more special, more significant.

Finally, she breathed out his name, needing to say it, now that she had access to it.  “Theta.”

That seemed to set him off, as he rose up and kissed her again, framing her face in one of his hands.  He was so close to her, she felt like nothing could compare to this exact moment.  She realized that every time he pulled away, he was whispering her name, and she ignored any other sensation that she was feeling. He was the most important man that had ever wandered into her life, and she knew, really, that she wasn’t going to let him go.  She couldn’t.  Not now.

Her name was pressed against her skin over and over again, and she let her eyes flutter closed, though she desperately wanted to look at him.  She sifted her hands through his hair, listening to him hum happily before he lifted his head again.  

“I want-” he cleared his throat. “I want everything with you,” he said, “Is that alright?”

She nodded, grinning from ear to ear.  “Yes,” she said finally, “That’s alright.”

He smiled back at her and swept down to kiss her again.  “My Rose,” he said softly, taking her leg and hitching it up over his hip, just so he could get closer to her.

“My Theta,” she whispered, and the TARDIS hummed happily, agreeing with the both of them.

He drew her ever closer, pressing them as close together as he could.  Now that he had permission, he felt like he could not get enough of her.  She was the most important woman who had ever come to him, and it was more like he fell into her arms without a way to go back. 

She brought her hands down to cup his cheeks as he opened his mouth over hers.  She was growing greedy for him, and she barely knew how to contain any of the love she felt for him. It poured over her in waves and broke her at the same time.  She loved him more than she had loved anyone before, she was absolutely certain of it.  And the way he was touching and kissing her had ruined her for every other man in the universe.  He was the only one, now.  Had been the only one for a long time, if she was honest.

She murmured his name again, just because she could, and it seemed to release anything in him that he might have been holding back.

They melted into each other so completely, that they wondered how they had ever been apart before. They were made for each other, Rose thought as he scrambled to kiss her deeper, and it was really that simple.

*****

Rose slept on, a couple hours after being sated and tired, and her temperature started to rise.  The Doctor charted and saw that they had at least six hours before they needed to get back to Achaz, and he had a feeling that he could bring her fever down by then.  The TARDIS, quite helpfully, told the Doctor that she was the one raising Rose’s temperature to fight off the rest of what was attacking her mind.  She also regretfully informed the Doctor that there was nothing she could do about the blue light.

The Doctor nodded.  He had expected as much, really, though he had wished for some sort of explanation.  He’d have to ask the Game Runner himself, he thought wryly, not liking the idea of that much but knowing that it would have to be done. Whatever was in Rose’s body, it couldn’t stay there, whether it was benign or not.  

Rose whimpered in pain and the Doctor settled his hand over her forehead, the coolness of his skin soothing her.  She moved towards him in her sleep, cuddling against his bare chest.  He let her, holding her close and kissing her forehead every so often to check that she was at a healthy level.  The TARDIS was a little insulted at that, but the Doctor told her it was just for precautions, that he trusted her.  

His ship gave a little reminder that she would wake them when it was time to leave, and the Doctor nodded a little. 

It was about time they finished this.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Absolute fluff, this one. Tooth Rotting, disgusting really, but at the end we are getting back into the plot and things will come to a head :)
> 
> Enjoy!

The TARDIS woke the Doctor first, telling him gently that he should probably be the one to wake Rose, since she was still so delicate. It was almost time to go to Achaz’s, she told him, and they needed to be ready.  He would worry if they didn’t show up.

The Doctor nodded and sent the TARDIS a wave of thanks. He was wrapped around Rose, protecting her in sleep, and since her fever was broken, her mind healed, she was sleeping quite soundly.  Their fingers were laced together over her stomach and she  seemed dreadfully comfortable.  He was loath to wake her really, after the day she had had.

He leaned over her and kissed her cheek softly, trying to wake her in a gentle way.  “Rose,” he said softly to her, hoping to rouse her.  “Rose?”   


She hummed in her sleep and shifted closer to him.  He took his hand from hers and she whined in upset, trying to find his fingers again.  He pulled his hand all the way away from her and settled it on her shoulder.   

“Rose."

She turned over and pressed her forehead to his chest. “Theta,” she breathed, still obviously half asleep. He cleared his throat. It seemed her saying his true name was going to have a wildly profound effect on him for just a bit longer. 

She was floating up from sleep now, slightly more awake, and she traced her hand over his bare chest as she came to.  She tilted her head back to look at him.

“Hello.” She said softly.

“Hello.” He replied, his eyes fluttered shut.  He didn’t even seem tired, just like he was enjoying being in this exact moment.

“My head hurts.” She told him.

He opened his eyes and stared at her.  “You had a fever in the night, the TARDIS was repairing the damage done to your mind. It’s to be expected, really.”

“M’kay,” she said, and it twisted his hearts, how implicitly she trusted him, how much she actually loved him, and allowed him access to her life. He reminded himself, in a very sober way, that he was certainly the luckiest man in the mulitverse to have this woman next to him.  

“We have to go to Achaz.”  He said, shaking himself from his thoughts.

“M’kay,” she said again, but her statement was negated instantly as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her nose to his cheek.  He sighed and sat up with her still clinging to him, not wanting to be separated from him.

“Get dressed,” he said, patting her side.

She pulled back and scowled at him. “Aren’t you going to kiss me good morning?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “If I kiss you good morning, I don’t think I’ll stop.”

“Oh, good,” she leaned towards him and he diverted her, pressing a kiss to her cheek before hopping up out of bed.  She pouted, quite prettily if he was honest, but the TARDIS had awakened them because they had a job to do.

“We can go back to our hotel after we help Achaz,” he hinted.

Rose rolled her shoulders and got up. “Fine,” she said, “But you owe me.”

“With pleasure.”

She went to the dresser, which the TARDIS had happily filled with her clothes, and pulled on slightly warm clothes, since the beach tended to be cold at night.  She watched the Doctor dress with fascination, and went up behind him as he was buttoning up his oxford.

She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned over his shoulder to bite his ear.  “You sure you don’t want to kiss me?”

He turned around and pushed her towards the wall, attacking her mouth the second he got her there. He kissed her harshly, hands cupping her cheeks gently.  The touch of his hands negated the touch of his mouth on hers and she wrapped her arms around his waist, tugging him against her.

Now that the both of them had willingly given in, while both in their right minds, they were obsessed with each other’s touch.  He moved his hands down to her waist and hoisted her up on the wall.  She switched her hand placement to wrap them around his neck, fingers drifting through his hair.  

He pressed against her, and she suddenly knew what he meant when he said that he wasn’t going to be able to stop.  He was intoxicating, and she just wanted to keep on touching him.  She gasped when he hoisted her higher up on the wall, just a bit roughly.

He pulled away panting after several moments.  “You have no idea what you do to me,” he said breathlessly.

“I’d like to have an idea,”she murmured.  “Tell me,” she said, nudging her nose against his.

He was helpless to resist when she asked him, especially while she was asking him so nicely and he was right up against her like this.  Addictive was the word for it, she knew that, knew exactly what he thought.  

“You make me want to be a better man,” he said, “I know I don’t deserve you, and yet I find myself craving you like I crave nothing else.” 

  
The TARDIS helpfully told the Doctor that they had ten minutes before they absolutely  _ had  _ to leave, so he had a few moments to keep on doing what he was doing.  The Doctor almost wondered if the TARDIS was very pleased that he had finally given in to everything that Rose meant to him.  

“I love you,” he said lowly, desperately, “You are the most beautiful woman in the universe, and so kind, and so caring,” he bit her neck and heard her head hit the wall.  

She wanted to show him the kind of attention he was showing her, but he wouldn’t let her hands free enough to do it, so instead she just let him absolutely ravish her neck, his hands digging into her waist.

Eventually, she ripped his mouth away from her neck and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “My Theta,” she whispered softly, “You are perfect,” she said, “No matter what you have done, you are perfect to me.”

He seemed to like that, but something clouded his vision.  “I want you to be happy,” he said softly, “And I’m afraid you can’t have that with me.”

“I am  _ only  _ happy when I’m with you,” she said.  “Earth has nothing for me now.  I meant what I said.  Everybody leaves home in the end, Theta, and this is me leaving with you and keeping you with me for as long as I possibly can.”

He kissed her again, hard and desperate, like he wasn’t going to be able to get close enough to her.  She wrapped her legs around his waist and held on for dear life.  He’d never been quite this assertive with her, in any respect of their relationship, and she had to admit that she was desperately enjoying it. 

He pulled back and pulled down the collar of her shirt, nipping at her collarbone and keeping her close against him.  “You perfect woman,” he said against her skin. 

“God,” she said softly in reply.

“Just ‘Theta, or the Doctor’ will do, my love,” he said, and then proceeded to make those next ten minutes count, right down to the second.

*****   
Fully dressed once again, the Doctor and Rose left the TARDIS and made their way back to Achaz’s home. It was dark and Rose felt completely awake for the first time in a long time.  She knew when she had been with the Game Runner.  She felt a little cold when she realized that she would have to see him again.  She squeezed the Doctor’s hand a little tighter at the thought.  He shot a worried look at her and then smiled a little bit.

When they reached Achaz’s house, he ran out, looking for the Doctor and Rose.  “You’re both alright! You weren’t here, I was worried.”

“The Game Runner did something to Rose that I didn't’ anticipate,” The Doctor explained, “We figured it out, though, it just took some… Time.”  He did not mention what they had been doing within all that time after Rose had been fixed.  Rose blushed anyway.

“Well, I’m, uh, glad that it’s sorted,” Achaz said. 

“Me too,” Rose said softly.  “What’s the time?”

“Eleven fifty five,” Achaz said.  “No signs of anything yet, though,” he said, “Thought it might start getting a bit obvious, but I guess not.”

“No, I suppose not,” Rose said, looking around. “I was hoping that there might be something obvious lurking about or something, you know?”

“Yeah, me too,” Achaz admitted.  “I have to admit, I thought this would be a lot easier than it is.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed.

The carnival started to whirl into existence then, just a couple minutes early, and Rose turned towards it, but something about it now struck utter fear into her heart and she tucked herself into the Doctor’s side.  He stood close to her, and in between herself and the carnival.

The Game Runner emerged from the fog that rose up around the carnival. He smiled at Rose, focusing in on her.  Rose was not one to cower, but this man had taken over her mind and done things to her that made her do horrible things to the Doctor against her will.  She pressed her nose into his shoulder and the Game Runner’s smile fell. 

“Rose?” The Game Runner said suspiciously.  “What are you doing?”

“You don’t have control over her anymore,” the Doctor said, “And we’re going to shut down this carnival whether you like it or not.  Bringing it here to save it is killing people, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t have that.”

“And I can’t either,” Rose said softly, making eye contact with the Game Runner but not liking it at all. His eyes unsettled her in a huge way.  She gulped and returned to the Doctor’s side.

“I haven’t known Rose to ever be afraid of anything like this,” The Doctor said, “The fact that she fears you makes me want to kill you with my bare hands.”  His voice was a low growl, dangerous and strong.  This was the Oncoming Storm, emerging completely for the first time Rose had seen in a very long time.  

“Of course, you won’t, though,” The Game Runner crossed his arms.  “The tales of the Doctor tell him to be a pacifist, someone who avoids fighting at all costs.”

“He is,” The Doctor said, “But not when you mess with my friends.  Not when you mess with Rose.”

Rose felt her heart swelling with all the affection and absolute love she had for him.  He was willing to defend her so completely with no regard for the consequences. He really loved her, and she knew that now with such certainty that it made her feel like she could defeat anything.  Maybe that was what true love had been all along, and she had just never experienced it, never been loved quite like this.  This was far from perfect, but it was theirs.

The Game Runner did not like this turn of events, and he also did not like the determined look on Achaz’s face as the three of them stood against him.

“What, you think you can defeat me?” He demanded, raising his arms, palms up to the sky.  “You think you can defeat my  _ army!?” _

Before them, from the carnival and around the carousel, people seemed to swell up out of the ground.  There were clowns, people who looked like trapeze artists, and other people that definitely worked at the carnival, but all their costumes were very dated and the oldness of them made Rose’s skin crawl.  They were moving slowly, like zombies, and they came at the Doctor, Rose, and Achaz like they were on a mission to kill.  Rose had to acknowledge that they probably were.

This was it.  This was their last chance to end it.


	19. Chapter 19

Rose wanted to hide behind the Doctor, and quite possibly run all the way back to the hotel. She had never liked carnivals as a child, and this one had somehow gotten into her head and made her think things she would have never thought on her own.  The reminder of this made her feel almost sick to her stomach, not that there was much she really remembered about it.  It was all feelings, not really any actions.

She swallowed hard and tried to pretend that she was strong.  She tilted her shoulders back and squeezed the Doctor’s hand just to make sure that he was still here.  He turned to her and pressed a kiss to her temple before facing the hoarde that was coming.

“Oh, God,” Achaz breathes, stepping back.

“We have to fight,” Rose murmured.

“Yes,” the Doctor agreed.

“There’s still time to stop this!” The Game Runner spread his hands out, as though framing the army that he had brought.  “You don’t want people to be happy, do you, Doctor?  You are a miserable man, you can never find happiness, and doesn’t that just absolutely kill you?”

“I have found plenty of happiness,” The Doctor replied, “And I think you know that we can work something out.  Just please call off your army, for a moment, so we can talk.”

The Game Runner seemed to consider this for a moment, and he held a hand up.  In sync, every single body stopped moving, and Rose shivered at how horrible it looked.  It did not seem real, like it was a scene from a movie.  It was the most absolutely  _ horrible _ thing she had seen, even beyond Slitheen, and possibly even how Zach looked when the devil had taken him over.

Rose kept her hold on the Doctor’s hand as the Game Runner approached them both.  It was better that they remained a united front, even to her own mind.  She looked over at him, and the look he gave her back was grim, but determined.  She felt her heart rate calm slightly at that, and looked back at the Game Runner.

He shook his head at her and crossed his arms as he approached them.  “Rose, I thought I had taught you better.”

She furrowed her brows. “You didn’t teach me anything, you brainwashed me.  How could you think that I could ever be alright with that?”

The Doctor said nothing, sensing that this was Rose’s battle. He would always be there to defend her, but this was quite different.  She needed this, he could sense it in the way the she was standing, in the turn of her nose and the crease in her brow. She had grown so much stronger since he had first met her, and he was not sure that he had ever been as proud of her as he was in that very moment.  She was brilliant and kind and absolutely beautiful.  He loved her absolutely, and he really didn’t know how he had lived so long without her.

“Rose, I opened your eyes, and you let him take all your new experiences and thoughts back.  How could  _ you  _ do that?” He demanded, “How could you let him take your freedom?  He wants nothing to do with your happiness, he only thinks about what’s best for the Doctor.”

“No.”  Rose’s voice was harsh and stern. “That’s not what this is about. This is about people dying, getting hurt because you think them ‘having fun’ is more important than them living.  If you need to blame someone, blame yourself.  The carnival is illegal and so you shouldn’t have it! It’s that simple!”

The Game Runner smiled, slow and evil, and it made Rose’s stomach turn.  “Rose, I think you know what’s best.”  He held his hand out, and Rose’s chest began to feel like it was burning from the inside.  She released the Doctor’s hand to stumble back and clutch her hands above her breast.  

Pain seared through her, unlike anything she had ever felt before, and she cried out as blue light started to seep through her fingers.  It was definitely coming from beneath her skin, and it made her shout again, fear coursing through her body.  

She groaned and fell to the sand. “What is this?” She asked, turning her face up to the Game Runner. “What did you do?”

“What is that?” The Doctor demanded, “My scans wouldn’t pick it up, what the hell have you done to her?” 

He was definitely afraid now, she could hear it in the hard lines of his voice.  She reached for the Doctor and he settled his hand to her back, not wanting to get on the ground with her only because the two of them would be below the Game Runner, and he really could not afford that.  Instead he leveled his gaze with the other man, as Achaz stood behind them, trying to remain strong even as fear threatened to rule him.

“She was to be the one to save the carnival,” the Game Runner said, looking down at Rose as though he were disappointed in her.  Like  _ she  _ had done something wrong in all of this.  He crossed his arms and looked down at her.  “She was to fix everything!”

“This is ridiculous!  What could she possibly have done to save the carnival!” He stared Rose down, his eyes sharp.  “I believed in you, Miss Rose Tyler. I believed in your ability to kill the Doctor, and you couldn’t even do that!  Pathetic!"   


Rose cried out again, too weakened by whatever was pulsing through her to be able to fight back.  She felt like her heart was gone, and had been replaced by whatever had been put in her chest.  She was afraid. 

She didn’t  _ get  _ scared, not anymore.  She felt tears spill from her eyes as the feeling overpowered her. She stared down at the light spilling from her and tried to pull herself to her feet.  She couldn’t.  It felt like something was pushing down on her, like gravity was dragging her.  

She barely felt alive, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.  Any Bad Wolf that had been left in her was abandoning her now, as they couldn’t do anything about it.  She dug her fingers into the sand and considered her options, not that she could think of anything. 

“Stop this!” The Doctor shouted. “We can work something out, we can, you don’t have to do this to her. You have to be killing her!”

“And so what if I am?” The Game Runner snapped, “She can’t do anything right. She’s a pathetic little girl that wants to see something fantastic? She wants to see the world, the  _ universe?   _ I’ve been in her head, I’ve seen it, saw it all while I was fixing her brain!"   


“You weren’t fixing her!” The Doctor roared, grabbing the other man by his lapels. “Leave her alone.  Let her go,” he said through gritted teeth.  

“I can’t,” the Game Runner said, shaking his head.  “It’s the carnival, not me.”

The Doctor released him, pushing him away.  He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. “Call off your army,” he said lowly, his tone dangerous.  “Destroy the carnival.  This is your last warning.’

Rose felt her body vibrate, though she wasn’t sure why, and it seemed to make sense all of a sudden. Oh, yes.  She controlled the carnival. It  _ answered  _ to her.  But she didn't know how to control it, only the Game Runner did.  And she couldn’t exactly ask him, he would never say anything to help her, or to help the Doctor.  

She whimpered and tried to cease the throbbing in her chest.  She could hear the Doctor shouting and she wanted to go to him, to help him fix whatever had happened, but it seemed that he was so far away that she would never be able to reach him.  

:”Theta,” she said softly, forgetting that she was supposed to keep that quiet.  His true name gave her an odd sort of comfort, and it seemed to soothe the throbbing in her chest, and she willed him to be more attuned to her presence, even as he shouted.

She could feel a heavy heartbeat in her ears, and she stood slowly, trying to regain her equilibrium.  The Doctor grabbed her arm.

“Rose?”

“I’m okay,” she said.

“No she isn’t, the light will destroy her,” the Game Runner said simply.  “She’ll be ruined.”

“What do I do?” Rose asked, her voice a quiet whisper as fear coursed through her.  The Doctor’s grip on her was reassuring but somehow not enough.  She needed his arms around her, needed reassurance.  She felt her brain jumble and her only wish was to fix it, fix it.  Something was wrong and her body was trying to fight it, but didn’t know how.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you how to fix this,” The Game Runner said, “You’ve refused to help me.  Army!  Advance!”

The carnival people that the Doctor and Rose had thought would stay back came up, regardless of the wish that they wouldn’t.  Rose stood tall against her pain as the Game Runner fell back a few steps.

“They’re all yours!” He shouted.

“Achaz, run!” The Doctor said to the young man over his shoulder, “We’ll take care of this, really, but I don’t think either of us could live with ourselves if you got hurt.”

“No, give me a second, I want to help.”  Achaz ran back to his house and the Doctor almost rolled his eyes. There was no way that the boy was going to come back out, not when he was in the safety of his own home.

His mind reeled. As many thoughts as he processed in a day and he couldn’t think of a solution to this. No, it was all clowns and artists and ringleaders coming at him, faces contorted into ugly snarls and sneers, and some of the more roguish looking men leered at Rose as though she was their next meal.

Rose felt the TARDIS trying to send her something, even though she didn’t understand it. She wrinkled her nose and tried to figure it out.  “Go,” she said to the Doctor, “You want to fight this time, I can tell.”

“I can’t,” he said through gritted teeth, “Not after everything I’ve done.”

She turned to him and cupped his cheek, trying to ignore her pain for just a few moments.  “Sometimes you have to fight, Doctor,” she said softly, “And sometimes you have to fight dirty.”  She squeezed her eyes shut after she said it and whimpered.  “Please, Theta, fight them.”

He kissed her forehead and turned back to the mob just as Achaz ran out carrying… Good Lord, where did that boy find two swords?

“I got them from an Earth museum, had them shipped to me!” he said, tossing one to the Doctor, who weighed it in his fighting hand.  

“You’re brilliant, Achaz, I don’t think I gave you enough credit,” the Doctor said, thinking about what Rose had said. “This time, we fight.”

The two of them waited until the horde got closer and started to attack, slashing with the swords.  Instead of dying, the people disappeared, and the Doctor had a feeling that they were simply going back to where they had came from, but with any luck, they wouldn’t be able to return.  

Achaz was good with the sword, and the Doctor was suddenly grateful to have the man by his side. ‘Move forward,” he called, “We have to get them away from Rose.”   


Achaz agreed and they pushed back mightily against the shouting masses that were coming towards them.  It was quite a sight to behold, as the Doctor was pink with fury he had barely known, and Achaz had sweat dripping from his brow as he fought like he had never fought before.

Rose stood behind them, wavering, and as she did she started to fully understand her power. The blue light was hurting her less, though she couldn’t quite put a finger on why. The TARDIS hummed in the back of her mind. 

“What are you doing?” Rose whispered to the ship. 

The TARDIS hummed happily back at her, confident in her Wolf.  _ Helping you harness it. _


	20. Chapter 20

Rose felt like something was swelling within her, and she had no idea what it was.  Her body seemed to be coming alive, and she watched as the blue light that had lived in her chest start to spread out and eat at her veins.  She was glowing one hundred percent now, and she wanted to call out for the Doctor, but him and Achaz were fighting, and distracting him could mean his death.  So she stumbled farther back and tried to control whatever was happening inside her 

The Doctor was pushing back in a way she had never seen him do before, and really, Rose was used to the Doctor keeping his distance and being indifferent, but now he looked furious, like he was angry because she had been hurt.  She had never seen him sweat before, but he was sweating now, and it was dripping from his fringe and his arms.

She wanted to help.  She wanted to fix this.  She took a couple steps forward but was struck down as she couldn’t think of what she was supposed to do.  What was she supposed to do?  She groaned, keeping it behind her hand so that the Doctor wouldn’t hear her and turn around.

Her body was entirely glowing blue now, and thought it didn’t hurt, it did increase pressure on her skin.  She sat up in the sand, trying to keep herself calm.  She could keep calm, she could do it.  Her body was coping, she had a feeling that was the TARDIS helping her, but she couldn’t be sure, and she wanted to be sure.  

She clenched her fists and tried to get to her feet but fell back down. She stared down at her legs and saw them glowing.  She felt the TARDIS whispering in her head and tried to open her mind to listen.

_ My dear, you need to lay down. _

“Why?” Rose put her head in her hands,  “I have to help him.”

_ You will help him if you lay down. I have to help you first. _

“I don’t understand.”

She felt a wave of calm wash over her, like the TARDIS was trying to settle her down before doing anything that she actually needed to do to help Rose. She was shaking now, waiting for the TARDIS to speak back to her.

_ They replaced your heart, my Wolf, I’m trying to give yours back. _

Rose felt her bottom lip tremble and began to cry, feeling overwhelming sorrow come over her. Her heart?  How had the Game Runner taken her heart?  Whatever it was, they’d put some sort of machine in her body instead, which was probably part of the reason that they were able to control her into wanting to kill the Doctor.

“Does Theta know?” She whispered, hoping simultaneously that he would and wouldn’t.

_ No, dear,  _ the TARDIS said,  _ he could not find out what was wrong with you. _

She was sobbing quietly in the sand now, the only sound being that of the Doctor and Achaz fighting the hoarde.  They were crying out and Achaz was certainly growing tired, but the Doctor was furiously pushing back, making up for whatever ground Achaz was losing for them.  It was probably better for them that the carnival people did not have weapons, but there were so many of them that Rose thought it didn’t even matter.

_ Lay down,  _ The TARDIS told her,  _ I am doing my best.   _

The carnival people disintegrated into dust as the Doctor hit them and Rose finally lay down, letting the light overwhelm her. She closed her eyes and heard the TARDIS singing in her head, her body taken over by whatever was inside her.  She shuddered and fell still.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder and saw Rose lying in the sand, looking very much as though she was laying in her own grave.  Her hands were folded over her stomach, light radiating off of her, her face ashen but looking relaxed on some level.

He started to turn to go to her, but Achaz called out “No!” stopping him in his tracks.

The young man was still fighting, sweat pouring off of him and running into his eyes.  “You have to fight.  I don’t know what’s happening with her, but it looks like she lay down willingly, she didn’t collapse. Come on!”

The desperate tone in Achaz’s voice made the Doctor think that perhaps he might be right.  He turned back and found himself looking right at the Game Runner, who seemed to be slowing time around them.

“You’re not a Time Lord,” the Doctor said, narrowing his eyes. “How are you doing that?”

The Game Runner lifted a shoulder.  “I think you will find that you do not need to be a Time Lord to have an extraordinary power, Doctor.  I am quite strong, especially now that I’ve been in the head of your pretty little girl, too.”

“She is  _ not  _ a little girl,” The Doctor protested, knowing full well that the woman laying in the sand not far from them was a woman who had actively been torn apart by events in her life, many of which were his doing.  If anything, he was the child for being so irresponsible and dragging them both into some place that was dangerous. He admired her for keeping them both alive, for keeping them afloat when things got hard.  She was his anchor, and she knew that now, and she was  _ not  _ allowed to leave him.  He would not let her.

The Game Runner’s brow arched as he regarded the Doctor.  Azchaz was moving past them in slow motion, moving to slash his sword at a clown whose mouth was open in an angry scowl.  The Doctor stepped aside a bit to avoid his swing and looked to the other man again.

“You are a fool.”  The Game Runner said, “I’ve replaced her heart, and you didn't even notice.  When she awakes, she will be my faithful servant again, and her first target will be you.”

The Doctor blanched and felt his blood start to boil. “What did you replace her heart with?” he asked through gritted teeth.

The Game Runner shrugged, “I am sure, in fact, absolutely certain that you would love to know exactly what I replaced her heart with.”

“Where’s her heart?"   


The Game Runner tapped his index finger to his chin.  “Perhaps ‘replace’ isn’t the correct word, then,” he said, “Let’s say reworked.”

“And what does that mean?” The Doctor’s patience was growing thin, he was not sure that he would be able to take much more of this without piercing his sword right through the Game Runner’s stomach.  But this man, as it was now, was the key to Rose, and he could not risk him dying.  The Doctor had a feeling that the man knew this and that was why he was pushing it so much. 

“Miss Tyler now has loads of metal worked through the chambers of her heart.  Should be positively scientifically impossible, but in fact, Rose Tyler’s heart is very, very strong.  Oddly strong, in fact.  Her heart should not beat so powerfully, but it does, so it was easy to plug metal and wires in,” he said.  

The Doctor felt his heart plummet.  It would be very hard for him to fix her heart, if whatever happened to her did weave through the chambers of her heart.  That would spell absolute disaster.  At the very best, he would have to perform open heart surgery on her, which he could do, quite easily in the TARDIS med bay actually, but he knew the dangers of performing surgery on someone he was close to.  Not that he’d really  _ done  _ it, but he knew doing it on Rose would make his usually steady hands shaky.  

“You didn’t do anything to her brain?” The Doctor demanded, “I need to know.”

The Game Runner glanced over his shoulder at Rose.  “Well, yes, but that was all brainwashing and hypnosis really,” he said, waving it off, “very simple indeed, if I am honest with you.  I am surprised she broke out of it.”

“She’s stronger than you were planning on,” the Doctor said, feeling a swell of pride.  “And now, I’m going to kill you.”

The Doctor forced time to move at a regular pace then, his Time Lord powers overcoming whatever the Game Runner had been using.  The other man cried out and held his head in his hands as he stumbled back, not expecting time to shift like that around him.  The Doctor lifted his sword, and the Game Runner stepped back in time for the Doctor’s sword to meet the sand in front of his feet.  

“This is like grinding through enemies on a video game!” Achaz shouted over the growls of the people who were coming towards him.  They seemed to be almost inhuman, their eyes sharp and wild as they approached.  Achaz’s strokes of the sword were seeming to get slower and a bit more tired as his muscles grew fatigued.

Overall, the whole thing didn’t seem to hard for the young man to handle, and so the Doctor took the Game Runner on by himself.  He pushed his sword at the other man, who stepped back again.

“I can _ not  _ believe that you would try to use her to get to me,” he said lowly, dangerously.

“It worked, didn’t it?” The Game Runner laughed loudly, and The Doctor cried out, lunging for the Game Runner again. He was too fast, moved one of his cronies in front of him so that the Doctor struck him instead, and he disintegrated into dust.

“What is that?” The Doctor demanded, “Why do they dissolve?”

“Genetically modified.  Cleanup is less messy if one of them steps out of line,” the Game Runner said nonchalantly.

The thought made the Doctor feel sick.  This man really was an absolute psychopath, dangerous to the worst degree.  He rose his sword to strike again when a gust of wind blew against his back, and he turned around to see what had caused it as the TARDIS hummed happily in the back of his head.

Rose stood now, blue light emanating off of her.  Her eyes glowed cobalt, and her hair blew around her wildly.  A chill lit his bones and he wondered if it had really been him who was the Oncoming Storm all along.

“Rose,” he called out, “Are you alright?”

It seemed asinine the moment he said it, but he couldn’t think of anything else, and really, it seemed to make perfect sense to ask her that.  He’d just found out that her heart had been altered, after all.

She held up a shaky hand and curled her fingers.  A bolt of blue light shot from her palm and hit four of the people that were attacking Achaz.  They exploded into a cloud of dust that the Doctor had no choice but to close his eyes agaisnt.  Rose continued shooting something, and the Doctor could tell now that most of it was coming from the TARDIS.  She was harnessing power and pushing it through Rose.

She turned to the Doctor suddenly, her face alight.  “I want you safe.  My Doctor.” She turned back. “Achaz!  Duck!”

Achaz was not a stupid man, so he promptly hit the dirt when Rose told him to.  She put both hands out and cried out, pressing lightning from her palms. Her arms were shaking from the force of it and the Doctor could see tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked like Bad Wolf again, but if it was possible, this was much more intense.    

The Game Runner cried out in upset as his army was destroyed before his very eyes, and the Doctor had a sudden vision of pushing him into the line of fire.  But he couldn’t make Rose kill any more than she was already doing. He pulled the Game Runner’s shoulder and drove the sword up into his stomach.  

“This is what you get for trying to bollocks up my  _ family,”  _ He pulled the sword from the stunned man, who collapsed, still breathing, but barely, to the sand.  

Rose continued erasing the army until there was no one left, and then it was Rose who collapsed, gasping.  Her limbs twitched and the Doctor had only just gotten to her side when her eyes slipped shut.


	21. Chapter 21

Rose lay lifeless in the sand as the Doctor got to his knees next to her.  Achaz stood next to the Game Runner, sword pointed at him, in case he wanted to try something.  

It seemed that the carnival really did rely on Rose, since the rides started to stutter and not quite work right the moment Rose fell to the ground.  

“Can you fix this?” The Doctor asked over his shoulder, already knowing the answer but so desperate that he was willing to ask anyway.

“No,” The Game Runner laughed, and shook his head. “No!  Why would I make a cure for something so wonderful? She controls the whole carnival!” The man coughed up some blood and spit it into the sand.  “She is all powerful now.  You should be  _ thanking  _ me.”

The Doctor had a feeling that if he stood up, he would kill the Gamerunner with absolute certainty, leaving nothing behind.  He clenched his fists and tried to contain himself.  He was having trouble thinking rationally, with Rose’s life seemingly hanging in the balance.  

He turned back to her when he saw that Achaz had the Game Runner taken care of.  He bent over Rose and settled a hand on her cheek.  The idea of losing her after everything they had gone through, after they had finally given in to what was between them, filled him with absolute dread and horror.

“Rose?” He said softly, and she furrowed her brows and blinked her eyes open.  She stared at him and smiled softly, her whole face looking weak.

“Hello,” She said, her voice hoarse.

“Hello,” he grinned at her, completing the vow.

Rose closed her eyes again, but was clearly conscious.  “Did I commit genocide again?” She asked tiredly.

The Doctor chuckled quietly and shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him.  “Not quite, love,” he said softly.  “Can you sit up?”

“No,” she said.  “I don’t think I can.”

“I can try to carry you back to the TARDIS,” he said, “I just- Rose, I-”

“I don’t want you to leave Achaz here alone,” Rose cut him off.  “Did you kill the Game Runner?”

“Almost,” the Doctor told her, “I, um, stabbed him.”

“I know you don’t like to fight,” she said quietly, “But I hate what he did to me, and I’m glad you did something,” she opened her eyes again, and the Doctor could tell that she was trying to focus in on him. Her eyes seemed glazed and a little bit afraid.  “I don’t feel right, Doctor.”

“What do you mean?” the Doctor furrowed his brows and scooted closer to her, taking her hand in his.  “Rose, you have to tell me what’s going on.”

“I feel cold,” she said, “In my chest, in my legs.”

The Doctor knew that his best bet was to get Rose to the TARDIS as soon as possible.  He didn’t know if she was at risk for death, and he just felt better if he could go to the ship and sit with her as the TARDIS read her vitals. 

“Sir?” Achaz said uncertainly.

“Yes, Achaz?” The Doctor said, turning over his shoulder to see Achaz holding the sword against the Game Runner’s neck.  

“Should I kill him?”

The Doctor shook his head and stood up.  He walked to Achaz and held his hand out for the sword.  Achaz gave it to him without thought.  

“You’re bleeding out,” the Doctor told him as Achaz stepped away and sat next to Rose, taking the Doctor’s post. 

“What?” the Game Runner furrowed his brows.

“You’re human. I know your genetic material, I can sense it.  You’re dying.”

The Game Runner seemed to give up whatever charade that he had been holding onto.  His face went white and he gritted his teeth. “You could… you could save me,” he said, “You could take me back to your ship and fix me up, I know you have the power to do that.”

“Why would I do that?” The Doctor asked. “I’m the one that stabbed you.”

“You are a good man, Doctor.  I know you are.” He clutched his hand over his wound. “I know.  I’ve studied you.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Sometimes I am not a good man.  Sometimes you deserve what you get,” he said.  

Rose lifted her hand from where she lay next to Achaz.  She lifted her hand and the Doctor returned to her side, on the other side of Achaz so that he was facing towards the Game Runner, in case he tried anything.  

“What are you doing?” The Doctor whispered to her.

“I’m getting rid of the carnival,” Rose said, “It listens to me.”

“It’s yours, Rose, he made it a part of you,” The Doctor said.

“I know,” Rose said, tears welling in her eyes. “I think I’m gonna die,” she said.

“No,” The Doctor said firmly.  “No, Rose Tyler, you are not going to die, and I will not let you!”  He took her hand and pressed her knuckles to his lips.  “You listen to me. You have not lived long enough to die.”

“I don’t know if it’s up to you, Doctor.  Just let me finish this, if I can’t do anything else.”  She smiled softly at him.  “Please.”

Achaz looked up at the Doctor and nodded a little before sitting back, away from Rose, so that she could look at the carnival. 

The music was the only thing that filled the air as Rose tried to concentrate.  She squeezed her eyes shut and took a few deep breaths.  When she finally seemed to contain herself, she lifted her hand in a claw towards the carnival.

“Don’t!” The Game Runner said, falling to the sand as he tried to crawl towards her.  “You can’t!  If the carnival is gone, I have nothing!” 

Achaz stood to fend off the Game Runner from Rose.  He didn’t want him to go anywhere near his new friends, and the young man was big enough that the Game Runner didn’t want to risk trying to get past him in his current state.  He grunted and fisted a hand in the sand.

Rose looked to the Game Runner as tears spilled over her cheeks. “Good,” she said and curled her fingers in.  

The Doctor would never know how Rose knew what to do.  He assumed that the TARDIS was singing in her head, telling her what to do, but it made him wonder exactly how close of a bond the girl and his ship had. 

She cried out as she curled her hand, the tears coming faster and spilling into the sand.  The Doctor reached out and cradled her head in his hands, hoping to comfort her. He pressed his fingers to her temples and stroked his thumbs over her hairline, hoping to help ease whatever headache she might have.  

“Theta,” she whispered, and it was clear that she just needed to say his name.

“I know, I’m here,” he said.

It was obvious, then, what was happening, what she was doing.  The carnival started to shake, and blue tendrils of light exploded from her fingertips and laced their way around all of the rides and games, encasing them in light.  It made Rose feel weaker and weaker, which made her tears come harder as she realized this could be the last thing she did.

She wasn’t just moving the carnival, she was destroying it.  After a few moments of nothing happening, besides the blue light weaving, a shuddering crack resounded through the air.  The music shut off and stillness settled over the earth.  

After a few moments of that quiet, an explosion sounded.  The carnival exploded into a million pieces, and the carousel was last.  It shuddered and groaned until all the blue light that had been surrounding the parts that had already exploded traveled to it. It all plunged into the horses and center of the carousel.  

 It was the most grand explosion of all.  The lights flickered and blasted, the lights making horrible sounds as they exploded.  Rose closed her eyes against it and let her hand fall back to the ground.  She sighed harshly as the Game Runner’s screams of anguish cut through the dark of the night.

 “You did it,” the Doctor said softly, and she hummed in the back of her throat, just wanting to acknowledge that she had heard him speak to her.  

 He brushed her sweaty hair back from her face.  “Come on,” he said, ‘Let’s go back to the TARDIS.”

 She nodded against his hand and he picked her up, one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders.  She fell into his chest as he lifted her and she sighed.

 “What do we do with him?” Achaz asked, gesturing back to the Game Runner, who was pale and trembling in the sand.

 “Call the police,” the Doctor said.  “Tell them a man has been stabbed on the beach.”

 Achaz understood what the Doctor was saying.  “You were never here,” he said, nodding.

 The Doctor nodded. “Very good,’ he said, 

 “Thank you,” Achaz said. “I am very grateful to you both, and I am very sorry.”

 The Doctor smiled. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You did the right thing, you called for help. Not many are brave enough to do that.  And if not us?” He gestured to Rose with his chin.  “Then who?”

 Achaz nodded, his lips pursed. “I will be forever indebted to you,” he said seriously.

 “I think of you as a friend, Achaz, and I thank you for being one of the bravest beings I have come across,” he said.  “You are brilliant.”

 Achaz inclined his head in a small bow.  “Should _you_ ever need anything, I will be here.”

 “I’ll keep that in mind.  Goodbye.”

 “Will she be alright?” Achaz asked as the Doctor turned away.

 The Doctor looked down at Rose, her shallow breaths passing through parted lips.  “I think so,” he said, not really sure at all, but really quite grateful to Achaz, so he would give him a little bit of hope that he didn't’ even have.

 “Goodbye,” Achaz said, and there was so much conveyed in that word that the Doctor finally understood.  There was relief and peace.  He could finally be free in his own home.  

 The Doctor had not known that kind of freedom in a very long time.  He hoisted Rose up in his arms and attuned himself to the beat of her heart.  “Rose?” He whispered, “I need you to stay with me, alright?”

 “Alright,” she said softly, barely audible to anyone who was not a Time Lord.  

He spoke to her quietly the whole time he was walking, feeling very fortunate that there were not many people out.  And if they were, they were completely drunk and thought nothing of a man carrying a girl through the streets.  

“I love you,” she breathed.

“I love you too,” he told her, “But you aren’t saying goodbye, I won’t let you.”

“I always knew that you would never let me die on time,” she said, a bit of tired humor in her voice.

He lifted her a bit higher. “If I have it my way, Rose, you’ll never die.”

And now, the Doctor returned to the TARDIS with Rose, hoping that he could save the day once again and save his Rose.


	22. Chapter 22

He kicked open the door to the TARDIS, who sang worriedly in his mind, and Rose’s as well by the sound of it.  Rose hummed happily and tilted her face up.

 “Oh, hello,” she said softly.  She looked at the Doctor.  “I have a feeling your ship and I are really best friends.”

 The Doctor’s lips twitched in the ghost of a smile, the first glimpse of one that he’d had in a long time.  He hoisted her up higher and looked into her eyes. “I think you are, too.  She loves you.”

 “She does?”

 “Oh, yes, why do you think she always takes your side when we fight?”

 Rose tipped her head against his shoulder, grunting in pain and curling in on herself.  “Because us girls have to stick together,” she said through gritted teeth.

 The way Rose was reacting was making the Doctor’s steps pick up through the console room. The TARDIS sensed the urgency in the air as she tried to read what was wrong with Rose, and opened the door to the med bay so that the Doctor could slip right in.  

“Don’t you worry, Rose, we’re gonna get you fixed right up, alright?” He was rambling now, and he knew he was. “Yes, ma’am, my dear, you are going to be alright, because I need to take care of you until the end of time.  That’s the plan, Rose, you’re gonna stay with me forever.”

“I know,” Rose said, fingers curling into his jacket. “I know.”  

He had a feeling that she was saying that more for his benefit than hers, and he was struck once again by how selfless she was.  He could never deserve her, but somehow she had chosen him, and he could not even begin to understand how that had happened.  She should be with someone  _ better  _ than him, but no.  She looked into his eyes and all he ever saw there was love. 

He was not going to lose her.

 The Doctor gently laid Rose out on the med bay table and hurried to hook her up to some systems and IVs to keep her stable while he tried to see what was wrong with her and what he could do to fix it.  He muttered to himself under his breath for a few moments before realizing it was vital that he still keep Rose awake.

 “Rose, what do you think about flavoured medicine?”

 “S’awful,” she told him eloquently, her voice a little slurred.  She shifted on the bed. “My chest hurts, Doctor.”

 “Where?” he asked her carefully.

 “The middle,” She said, lifting a weak hand and pressing it right over her heart, which he now knew was altered.

 Being a big, fantastic TIme Lord, he had access to the kind of equipment that humans did not.  He picked up a device that he could scan over her and see what her heart looked like.  He pulled it and settled it over her chest, tilting Rose’s chin away from it.  Her eyes were open but a little glazed as she stared at him.

 “Hello,” he said to her, pressing the device into her skin, letting it read past her bones to her heart.

 “Hello,” she said softly, watching him work.  She was silent, and he looked to her face again.

 “Are you alright? Does it hurt?”

 “Doesn’t hurt,” she told him, “Just… Feels numb, that’s all.”

 “Well, we can’t have that,” he said softly, smiling at her and trying to make her feel a little better.  She grinned back at him, decided weak, but very happy, all the same. The love in her eyes was clear and he had a feeling that nothing would ever match that brilliance of that look.

 She closed her eyes, feeling very tired.  “Did I miss anything?” She asked.

 “I don’t think you spaced out like you did when you were Bad Wolf,” the Doctor said, trying to reassure her.  “It’s alright, really.  Are you afraid I’ll be upset with you?”

 “I never know what I do, like… How it affects you,” she said, “How you’ll think about me after… Like Bad Wolf.”

 He shook his head. “Rose, nothing you have done has made me upset.”

 “That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard,” she murmured.

 He stroked his hand through her hair as the machine read her.  “I haven’t ever been angry at you,” he said earnestly.

 “Remember when I almost destroyed the world?”

 “Which time, love?”

 She huffed out a little laugh. “With my dad."

“Yeah.”

“You were really mad.”

“I was mad that you weren’t hanging around me,” he told her, “All of a sudden your dad was your hero and I wasn’t.”

“You’ll always be my hero,” Rose said sleepily, though the Doctor had a feeling it wasn’t natural sleep pulling her down.

“Can you stay awake?” He asked her, pulling his computer over to her bedside.  “Talk to me.”

“About what?” she asked as he booted it up, loading into the computer that would read Rose’s heart.  

He looked down at her. She had opened her eyes again, looking up at him drowsily.  He didn’t know what to say to her, to tell her that maybe he didn’t know what to do this time. It wasn’t really fair to either of them, and that’s not what he wanted.  He wanted full honesty, but he also didn’t want to scare her.  So he just smiled at her and cupped her cheek.

“Tell me your favorite story,” he said, and turned back to the computer.

She hummed happily.  “Okay,” she said, “But only because you asked so nicely.”

At the sound of her usual cheerful, teasing tone, he breathed out a sigh of relief and looked at her heart as she began to speak.  He settled into the stool next to the bed.

“I wanna tell you, Theta, that meeting you is my favorite story,” she said softly, “It is… I’m so happy.  I knew that nothing was ever going to make me happy at home.  Not Mickey, not my job, nothing.  I was miserable, and yet you came along, and took my hand, and we’ve been runnin’ from danger ever since.”

“That’s your favorite?” he asked.

“Mm hmm.”

The Doctor smiled and looked at her heart. It was pumping, but slower than normal, and he could see the light weaving in and out of her heart, metal weaving through her chambers.  The Doctor felt tears well up in his throat.  This wasn’t fair.

“Rose, I don’t want you to be scared, all right?”

“Why would I be scared?”

“Because the Game Runner altered your heart and I have to fix it,” he said softly, looking back to her.

“And how do you need to fix that?” she asked, her tone timid and small.  “How do I- What do you need me to do?”

“I’m going to have to perform surgery on you,” he said, afraid of what she might think of it but knowing that he was going to have to do it regardless of what she thought, to keep her safe.  He wanted her to be safe, that was, in fact, the  _ most  _ important thing.  

She bit her lip and he could see the fear in her face. “Oh,” she said, “On my heart.”

“Yes.”

She swallowed. “Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it?” He raised his eyebrows at her.  “Are you sure?”

“WIll i live?” She asked him bluntly.  

“Yes,” he nodded, ‘I will not let you die, Rose, I would  _ never  _ do that.”

“So you know that you can fix it?”

“Yes, I do, but it is going to be a very long operation,” he said, “What I can do is go inside your head and keep sending you positive thoughts and happiness.”  He stroked his hand through her hair and she turned into his touch. “It would make you a little more comfortable while it happens.

“Okay,” she said.  “I trust you.”

“I feel like sometimes you shouldn’t.”

“Well, I do, so there.”

“So there indeed,” he said, and leaned down to kiss her forehead.  She smiled just a little bit at that and sighed.  

“Just do it.”

He saw her heart rate on the computer pound harder, as she grew afraid.  The metal around her heart sparked and it made his own hearts leap in fear.  He didn’t like the look of that at all.  He turned back to Rose. “Okay,” he said softly.

“I love you,” she stated again.

“Oi, none of that, you sound like you’re saying your last words, which really does hurt my pride, Rose Tyler, as I am supposed to be the one saving you and I love you too, by the way.” 

She giggled at his rambling.  She watched him as he started to prep her for surgery. He knew that he should probably do something to reassure her, but the lump in his throat would barely let him.

And, really, he should’ve been keeping a better eye on her, because she looked past him to the screen that held the image of her heart.  “Oh, my God,” she said softly.

The Doctor looked at the screen. “Oh, no, Rose, don’t look at that,” he stood in front of it, staring down at her face. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“I… I… What did he do to me?” She whispered, tears spilling over her cheeks.  

 The Doctor got down close to her and cupped her cheek in his hand.  “Rose, I’ll explain after, okay?”  he kissed some of her tears away and stroked his thumb over her cheekbone.  “I’m really terribly sorry that this happened to you, Rose, but I’m going to fix it.”

 Her lip was trembling but she still nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said softly, “Okay.”

 “Don’t be scared,” he whispered to her.

 “I’m scared,” She replied. 

 He couldn’t bring himself to say anything to her about how she shouldn’t be scared when her eyes were spilling over with tears and searching his, looking dreadfully afraid.

 “Well, lucky for you, I’m not scared, and I know I can fix this.”

 He watched her for a few moments more and kissed her softly before pulling away and starting to sort out everything for her.  He removed his jacket and washed his hands as her breathing started to grow heavier with fear.  He wanted to gather her into his arms and squeeze her tight, and tell her that it was alright that she had metal in her heart, though he knew it absolutely wasn’t.  None of this was alright.

Once he was all sorted, he came back to her side.  He cupped her cheek, fingers pressing to her temple. The TARDIS helped him as well, and the anesthesia as well as the telepathy pulled her into unconsciousness.  She breathed out and he pursed his lips before beginning a surgery he had never performed on a woman that he loved, or  _ anyone  _ he loved really.  

But of course, he  _ had  _ done it before. He had lived a very long time after all, and he had learned much.  He had so many degrees he wasn’t sure he could even count them any more.  He knew that he could save her.  He knew that he needed her, and that was really enough for him.

 “Alright, Rose,” he said softly, preparing his tools, and watching the screen with her heart on it.  “That beautiful heart of yours, the heart underneath all that metal and blue tubing, that is always worth saving. Always.  No matter what you think about how you’re ‘just’ a human, Rose Tyler, you are my entire world.”

 The TARDIS was so very happy with the two of them being together that she settled her protection over Rose, protecting her wolf from whatever complications the surgery might have. The Doctor sensed her doing it.

 “Thank you,” the Doctor whispered, and cut up through Rose’s shirt so he could have access for his tools.  Bile rose in his throat as he saw blue throbbing beneath her chest. 

 Her own heart was holding her captive, really, and it was killing him.

Another lucky thing about the Doctor was that he was a  _ really strong  _ Time Lord, so with one touch to her mind, he let his happy thoughts go to Rose’s to keep her occupied during the procedure, and heaved a deep sigh.  He wanted her to fill with happiness, and wake up happy, with him next to her.

With another gentle and loving kiss to her forehead, he made the first cut.


	23. Chapter 23

Rose was asleep, she knew that much.  She felt, for a moment, the pressure of the Doctor’s fingers against her temple, and then it was gone.  She wanted to turn towards his touch but she couldn’t move, so she tried to calm herself and trust in whatever the Doctor had been doing.  She knew it was his touch, so she felt a bit better about it immediately.

The scenery around her mind’s eye changed and she was standing in the middle of a field, staring around at the vast emptiness.  Luckily, it was very calming, and she closed her eyes against the breeze that gently touched her face and blew her hair away from her neck, which was inexplicably sticky with sweat.

Her body felt light, and she pressed her hand to her chest, remembering exactly what was going on.  Right. Her heart.  But it wasn’t even really her heart, not anymore, not after what had happened.  So she sat down heavily, trying to think of what to do and not finding any paths that could help her.  

 She put her head in her hands, elbows on her knees.  She felt so exhausted from everything that had happened.  Her mind felt like someone had stampeded through it, and her body felt limp and tired.  

 In the back of her mind the TARDIS still lingered, chattering in Rose’s mind, trying to keep her spirits up. She could feel the ship’s anxiety and wondered what _she_ had to be worried about, being sentient and all powerful and infinite.

 The TARDIS, as it were, was very afraid for Rose.  Yes, she trusted the Doctor to care for her Wolf, but it was still a highly invasive surgery.  As she spoke to Rose, she was watching him remove metal tubing from the inside of Rose’s heart, including the aorta as well as the chambers. The Doctor’s hands were not shaking, but he too was afraid.

 This was his one and only, and the TARDIS knew that. Women had left lasting impressions on the Doctor before, Charlie and Jo, just to name a couple, but none had been like Rose.  None had her compassion and zest for life and the unconditional love for the Doctor.  The woman was just unmatchable, and it was really that simple for both ship and Time Lord to understand.  

She was Rose Tyler and she would never know how important she was, but the Doctor swore to himself that he would show it to her every day for as long as she lived, and if he could finish this procedure properly, it was going to be a very, very long life.

Rose stayed in the meadow of her mind for what felt like ages.  The TARDIS talked to her for much of it, hoping to calm her.  She liked talking to the ship, as she didn’t usually.  But this was different. This was a connection that she had never had with the TARDIS before, so as quiet settled over her body and mind, she looked up to the sky.

“You’re nervous,” she told the TARDIS as she pulled a blade of grass up.  The ship hummed in agreement and Rose laughed a little, shaking her head.

“If there is one person I trust with my literal and figurative heart…” She smiled a little, feeling warm all over.  “It’s him.  It’s Theta.”

She liked knowing that she had access to his name in a way that nobody else (except perhaps the TARDIS) did.  She liked how it sounded, how it rolled off her tongue in a pleasant way, like it was a word that was destined to be on her lips.  And in a way, she supposed it was.  

She pushed her fingers into the dirt and grass, trying to focus in but not quite managing it.  She wondered what was happening outside of her body.  She wasn’t sure what sort of surgery was happening on her, she only knew that it was ‘something’, which wasn’t quite helpful when one knew that something was happening to their body.

The TARDIS urged her to lay down and sleep, and after awhile, Rose agreed, though the idea of sleeping inside her own mind was really, properly weird.  She lay down and stared up at the clouds and watched them quietly, letting peace settle over her.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep under the shade of a tree that the TARDIS provided for her.

********

Rose woke hours later, staring up into the lights of the med bay.  She saw that the Doctor had changed into pajamas and his head was pillowed on her thigh, his hand wrapped around one of hers.  She felt very weak, like her body was on its last legs.  Her breath was shallow.  

“Theta?” She whispered, her voice hoarse and scratchy.

He looked up from where he had been laying and smiled softly.  He looked absolutely exhausted.  “How are you feeling?”

“How are  _ you  _ feeling?” she asked.

He smiled. “Better, now that you’re awake?”

 “Am I okay?”

 “You’re going to be fine,” he said, “It was a complicated surgery, but your body responded well to it, you’re going to be alright.”

 She hummed and closed her eyes.  “Do you have the stuff that was in my heart?”

 ‘Yes, Rose, I do,” he said, a little curiously.

 “Yeah,” she murmured, as though to herself, “I’d like to see it.”

 “Why?”

 “I just want to, I need to know it’s gone.”

He looked very much as though he absolutely did not want to do that.  He reached up and cupped her face, forcing her to open her eyes and look at him.  She raised her eyebrows at him weakly, waiting for him to go ahead and just get the thing that she wanted to see.

“Rose, it’s… Graphic.”

“Mm-hm.  I saw it in my heart, Theta, I know it’s graphic, I need to see it.  I need closure.”

He stared at her for a few moments. “How are you so brave?” He asked her, smiling a little.

She smiled weakly.  “Because one of us has to be.”

He rose up and pressed a kiss to her forehead before looking over to the silver tray that held what had been woven through her heart. It made his stomach roll just to look at it, and the clanking sound it made when the tray shifted made him feel even worse.  He held it before Rose, and she craned her neck to look at it. 

The tray was filled with little metal particles and wires, thick and coiled tightly.  In between some of the coils, little breaths of blue light could still be seen. It had been very systematic in her heart, but outside of it, it looked like a tangled lump.  It also looked like far too much equipment to be held in her heart, like it should have crushed it.

Rose swallowed and laid her head back down, closing her eyes.  “How did the surgery go?” she asked.

The Doctor put the tray down and settled his hand over her forehead, stroking his thumb over her hairline.  “It went very well,” he told her, “You’ll have to be very careful doing anything, because the incision is down the center of your chest.” 

“Will you help me?” She asked, feeling and sounding very small indeed.  

“Rose, of course,” He furrowed his brows at her.  “I will be with you every step of the way.  I want to keep you in this bed for another twenty four hours, though, just to make sure that everything is alright.”

She was still hooked up to several machines, monitoring her vitals to make sure that everything stayed stable.  He moved his hand down to stroke her cheek before taking her hand closest to him in both of his.  

“I was very scared, Rose,” he said softly, “I was  _ so  _ scared.”

“You don’t need to be scared anymore,” she said, frowning at him.  “I’m right here.”

“Yes, you are, but- I could’ve lost you,” he said softly.

“You didn’t.”

“I know.”

“Come up here, you’re too far away,” she tugged weakly on his hand, and he went to her, curling up on his side next to her.  

“It scares me, you know.”

“What does?” She asked him, turning her head to face him.  Her eyes were very open to him, and he could see that whatever he was going to say, she would be ready to receive. She looked dreadfully alert for someone who had just woken up from a very invasive heart surgery.  

He looked at her carefully.  “I am… It scares me, how much I love you.”

“Well, I don’t think that should scare you.”

He wrinkled his nose at her.  “It does, though.  Because I’m not going to have you forever, Rose, no matter how hard we try, and that… that kills me.”

She leaned her head back farther on the pillows and closed her eyes. “Mm,” she made a non-committal sound and then leveled her gaze back on him again.  “Yeah, but see, the thing is, I think we could do something about that, and I think… I think things can be really good with us, Theta."   


“I didn’t say they wouldn’t,” he replied softly.

“It sounds like you’re trying to find a way out,” she whispered.

“No!  No, never, I couldn’t-can’t, I can’t leave you, Rose.  I never could,” He let out a long sigh.  “I’m just afraid of what will happen to me when you’re gone, and I know that’s selfish, but today made me think-”

“Theta.”

“Yes?” he said timidly.

“You are my world.  The most important man in my life, the most important man that has ever been in my life.  I love you and will stay with you as long as Time will let me,” she glanced at him and chewed her bottom lip.  “There’s a lot we’re willing to do for each other, don’t you see that?”

“I don’t know why I would ever doubt that you would say that,” he said softly, and he reached out to settle his hand over her waist.  “I’m sorry, you’re recovering and I just put this on you.”

“I want you to come to me,” she said, closing her eyes again and facing the ceiling instead of him.  “I don’t ever want you to hide from me again.  Ever.  Because that’s what you do, you hide, and it makes me feel desperate to know you.”

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to her temple.  “You are more than I have ever deserved,” he told her, “Since the War, I felt like I didn’t deserve happiness, but you showed me a light in my life that I thought I would never see again. When I saw what the Game Runner put in your heart, I thought I might lose you, that I might lose the only good in my life.”

 “I’m not the only good,’ she told him, “The good is what you do, how you make yourself.  You’re a good man, Theta.  I dated Jimmy Stone.  I know bad men.  You are _not_ bad.”  She paused, “And I think both of us need a bit of a rest after all this.”

 She leaned up over him and kissed his cheek, but that was too much work, so she fell back onto the pillows and breathed out a sigh.  “Thank you,” She said.  

 “For what?’

She smiled.  “For everything.”

He hadn’t believed he deserved her, but she was so much to him, and he couldn’t begin to let her go.

************* 

Two months later, Rose was back to her normal self, though the Doctor was still a very nervous man who didn’t like to let Rose out of his sight.   She leapt up and kissed his cheek as he piloted the TARDIS.

 “Alright, Theta. We visited my mum, but that’s it.  We’ve done nothing else!  Can’t we go somewhere?”

 He turned around in her arms and pulled her close to him, arms around her waist.  He brushed his nose along her.  “And so, how is that ticker of yours, Rose Tyler?"

“It’s fine, let’s visit a bloody garden in the moon ring of Stratus X or something,” Rose said, tugging on the back of his neck.  

He leaned down and kissed her, cutting off her please.  They never really tired of kissing, much to Jackie’s disgruntled comments when she walked in on them, even if it was just a peck.

Finally, the Doctor pulled away. “What did you say?” He asked teasingly.

“Give me a moment and I’m sure I’ll remember,” she said, looking a little dazed.

“I could take you somewhere in a few months,” he said, “And it could be a special trip.”

“What kind of trip?”

“Oh, um,” he suddenly felt nervous, though he didn’t know why.  “Sort of like, a honeymoon?  If you want, that is, I don’t- I mean I want- if you want, that is-”

“Are you asking me to marry you?"   


“Yes,” he said before he could stop himself.  “Yes.”

“Then, yes,” she said, “But why would we have to wait a few months?”

He pushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “Because you deserve a proper wedding, with your family, and friends.”

“What about your friends?” She asked, “I know you have some of those.”

“I can invite them down here,” he chuckled.  “They can come here, and most of them look human, so I think it’ll be alright.”

She smiled, feeling completely blissful about it, really. “Then yes, we’ll have a big Earth wedding,  and my mum will come, and Shareen will be my maid of honor, and who’ll be your best man.”

He shrugged.  “We’ll ring Jack.”

She giggled and he kissed her again.

Perhaps even broken Time Lords were allowed a happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking about writing an epilogue about the wedding (in fact, I'll probably do it whether people want me to or not)


	24. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter! Thanks to all those who read it! i really appreciate all the love from you guys! 
> 
> I don't have an idea for the next TenxRose story that's not 100% AU (That one, I have) so all requests are accepted below!
> 
> Enjoy!

The Doctor, being the Doctor, was still a bit afraid of commitment, and domestics, and Jackie Tyler.  He was not, however, afraid of Rose.  She had been the one at the helm of planning their wedding. She had forced her mother to take a backseat, though she was still allowed input, it just wasn’t as frequent as the older woman would have liked.  

“What do you think about colors, for the wedding?” Rose asked him, setting color swatches down on the table. When he just stared at her blankly until replying with “Um, blue?” she realized that she was going to do most of the decorating without him.

He was very interested in wine and cake tasting, but not much else really appealed to him.  He told her that he was must more interested in her than whatever sort of plan the two of them might have for their lives together.

“As long as it’s you coming to meet me at the altar,” he told her, and she smiled so widely he knew that for once, he had said the right thing.

The one thing about the ceremony that the Doctor did care about was that he wanted Gallifreyan elements.  They would perform a whole Gallifreyan ritual alone, but the Doctor wanted there to be parts of it in their earth wedding. Rose agreed wholeheartedly.  The wedding belonged to both of them after all, it wouldn’t be fair if she picked everything that happened in the ceremony.

It was when the Doctor started to see less of Rose that he started to get restless. She was going to dress appointments and hair trial appointments, and it was driving him a bit barmy. He was used to having her with him all the time, and being alone in the flat was driving him spare.

He decided, quite suddenly, that he was going to pick the rings, and get Rose an engagement ring while he was at it, because didn’t women like that sort of thing?  He left a note on the table telling them where he had gone, should they arrive home before he did, and left to go to the nearest jeweler. 

The picking of the rings wasn’t especially difficult. He located silver bands for them that wouldn't be too much trouble to maintain, especially when running through time and space.  Besides, they’d be more likely to be arrested for gold than for silver, so it was just safer.

When it came to Rose’s ring, though, he had to admit to himself that it was a very difficult decision to make.  He selected silver for the band and chatted with the man behind the counter as he tried to make a selection.

“What can I help you with, sir?” He asked after a few moments of the Doctor’s idle chat.  “You seem to have trouble picking a style.”

The Doctor ran a hand down his face and nodded. “Yes, well, my- my Rose and I, we live a very active lifestyle and I’m not sure what would be best.”

“Well, a smaller diamond would be best, then,” the man said, pulling out a selection for him.  It was silver, with a small but dazzling diamond in the middle, and a silver band lacing around the diamond like a web, keeping it secure. Inside the tiny web were a few more scattered diamonds. It was intricate and feminine and the Doctor thought that he’d never seen anything more perfect for Rose.

“You are very good at your job,” he told the salesman, and paid for the three rings. 

*********

The day of the wedding arrived, and the Doctor had given the rings to the tiny ring bearer, the son of a friend of Cousin Mo’s.  He squatted before the little boy and settled the rings onto the pillow.

“It is very,  _ very  _ important that you are very careful with these,” the Doctor told him steadily, “You must make sure they are in your sight at all times.”

The little boy nodded, “Yes sir.”

The Doctor smiled. “Good man.”

He’d rung up Jack to be his best man, because there wasn’t really anyone else that the Doctor liked, not that Jack was the  _ best  _ friend he had ever had, but he was his friend, and the Doctor found he didn’t have as many of those as he thought.

Some had come, a few aliens from planets close to Gallifrey, and Sarah Jane and her son had been invited.  The Doctor knew that Rose, on some level, was feeling upset that Mickey couldn’t be there, and the Doctor found that he missed the man as well, now that jealousy was not something that could cloud his vision when it came to him.

He stood by Jack up at the altar, clasping his hands together in front of him.

“Nervous?” Jack asked him cheerfully.  

“No,” The Doctor said, ‘I am very certain in my decision to marry Rose.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t be nervous.”

‘Like you’ve been married before.”

Jack laughed good naturedly. “Oh, Doctor, I’ve been alive for a very long time now, it’s safe to assume I’ve partaken in a few weddings, as well as a few wedding activities,” he grinned and winked and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

“You truly are the worst.”

“And that’s why you invited me back?”   
  
“Yes.”

Jack sighed. “And you didn’t even let me plan a bachelor party for you.”

“Rose and I both decided we didn’t need stag and hen nights,” the Doctor reminded him, “It’s just an excuse to get cold feet and neither of us wanted that.”

“The two of you love each other so much, you would never get cold feet,” Jack assured him, “And Rose trusts you absolutely.”

“Well, yeah, but no offense Jack, she wouldn’t trust you with planning my stag night.”

“And you wouldn’t trust Shireen.”

“Not at all.”

Jack chuckled. “Well, alright, I guess that’s fair then.  But really, Doctor, I’m happy for both of you, and I’m dreadfully happy that you called me up. I didn’t think you would.”

The Doctor cringed, feeling a little guilty for not calling Jack after all that time.  Rose hadn’t seen him in so long.  “No matter what, Jack, you are my friend.”   


“There is a time when I was sure you would never say that.”

The Doctor laughed.  Even he couldn’t disagree with that.  “Fair enough.”

A little later, Jack told the Doctor he needed to greet his guests, so he reluctantly went to everyone in the room and thanked them for coming, even if he really didn't’ know who they were.  He spoke to Cousin Mo and Bev, who he knew already. Jackie was back with Rose, so he was spared talking to her.

Sarah Jane approached him while he was floating around a little lost.  She gave him a hug that he returned gratefully, happy to have his most familiar friend there.  She laughed at him when she pulled away.

“I never thought I would see you married,” She said, “Out of anyone I’ve ever met in the whole universe, I never  _ ever  _ expected you to marry!”  Her eyes softened a little.  “But I think Rose is the perfect match for you.”

Sarah Jane’s approval wasn’t absolute, of course, he would still marry Rose no matter what, but he felt a bit of relief, since they had been adverse to each other at the beginning of everything.  

“Really?” he asked.  

“Of course,” Sarah Jane put her hands on her hips and beamed up at him.  “Doctor, I have never seen you happier than when you’re with Rose.”

The Doctor had to acknowledge that this was true.

****

Rose stood behind the doors to enter the church, her mother adjusting the skirt behind her.  She had chosen an ambitious ballgown, with a long train, trusting the universe to let her and the Doctor have this one day to be happy without aliens barging down their door.

She adjusted her veil over her face and smoothed her skirt down.  Shireen stood next to her, holding her bouquet while she fidgeted. 

“Babe, you have got to calm down, it’s all going to be alright. You’re marrying the man of your dreams.”  Shireen took Rose’s hand in hers.  “You are going to be so happy.”

Rose looked at her friend and smiled widely, “I know,” she said, “I’m very happy, even now, I’m just like, scared.  You know?”  

“I know.  Relationships are especially scary if you really love them, and this is a really big commitment.  But I’ve seen you around the Doctor, Rose.  You were meant for each other.”

Rose squeezed her friend’s hand and Shireen gave her a little hug from the side, not wanting to muss up your dress.  “You have nothing to worry about,” she reassured her.

“I know,” Rose replied, “It’s just… He doesn’t do families, I know he doesn’t, so this is something really weird for the both of us,” she took a deep breath, “But I just love him so much.”

“And he loves you.” Shireen sounded so confident. “I can see it every time he looks at you.”

The music signaling the beginning of the procession made Rose jolt and run her hand down her chest to make sure the scar from her surgery was gone. It was, of course, as the Doctor promised it would be, but she still worried about it.  

When it came her turn to walk down the aisle, she looked straight at the Doctor.  He was standing in front of Jack, his hands clasped in front of himself.  He looked absolutely gorgeous in a brand new tuxedo, beaming at her.  His face was filled with complete, unrestrained joy, and she found that her own happiness was absolutely brimming over. 

Since her father couldn’t walk her down the aisle, her mother and Shireen walked on either side of her, leading her down the aisle.  She barely remembered the walk there, only all of a sudden there was no one at her side and her mother was saying that she gave her daughter to be wed to the Doctor. 

The Doctor extended his hand down to her, and she took it. He helped her up to the altar and stared at her.  “You look beautiful,” he whispered.

“Thanks,” She smiled, “You’re properly dashing.”

He preened. “I tried, for you.”

“Oh, for me?"

“Of course.”

The ceremony started, and the Earth portion of it went quickly, what with the way the Doctor and Rose were staring at each other.

“And the two before us have some vows they would like to say to one another before we begin the traditional handfasting,” the priest said, tearing the two of them away from their own thoughts.

The Doctor licked his lips and looked to Rose.  “For the longest time, I believed that loving you made me weak.”  He looked down at her hands, closely held in his, her brand new engagement ring on her finger.  “But you are the key to my strength in a way that I never could’ve imagined and I tried to deny. But I think you and I both know that I can’t deny you anything.”

The crowd tittered a little at this.  

He smiled at her. “You are my world, Rose Tyler, and it is my honor to sit down with you and plan our… Trips, but also making a family.  I love the fact that you want a family with me. I never thought that I would have deserved it.  But you make me feel like nothing else.  And I love you with all of me.  I don’t know what else I could possibly say to you to help you understand.”

Rose took that as her cue, after inhaling deeply to ward off happy tears.  “You are my Doctor.  You saved me from a dead end job and horrible coworkers and a life that would have always bored me to tears.  But you are so much more than that.  You’re my  world,” she reached up and cupped his cheek, “The world is a wonderful place to travel, but it would have been horrible if I hadn’t had you with me.  I would’ve never wanted it otherwise.  I love you because you make the tough choices and you always protect me in the most brilliant way possible.  I love you because you don’t do the dishes and keep me happy because you  _ want  _ to.  And I will love you absolutely forever.”

She dropped her hand back to his and he offered a watery smile in return, not sure even how to reply to that.  The priest pulled a red ribbon from a dark wood box, and a hush fell over a crowd.  It held golden embroidery, circular Gallifreyan written all over it.  

“Dr. John Smith is from a country where handfasting is commonplace, and he and Rose would like to participate in this today.”

The Doctor and Rose joined right and hands, and the priest wrapped their hands the way the Doctor had shown him earlier.  He spoke the vow over them.

“The two of you have decided to tie your lifespans together, to live as one unit until one of your timelines shall run out.  Do you consent, and agree that this is true?”   


“I consent and agree,” the Doctor and Rose said together

“Then, I now pronounce you bound, and man and wife.  You may now kiss the bride.”  The priest unbound their hands and put it back in the box for the Doctor to take back later

Awestricken, the Doctor pulled back Rose’s veil and leaned towards her

“Theta,” she whispered, regretting that they couldn’t use his real name in the ceremony.  He grinned at her and kissed her then, hands at her waist.  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him until the cheering from their friends broke into her thoughts.  She pulled back, blushing, and he winked at her. 

Rose looked down at his hand, seeing the ring that she had placed on him.  She, Rose Tyler, shopgirl from London, had married the Doctor. 

And it was going to be absolutely brilliant.


End file.
